...who was better?
Taylor hurt before his prime.....Blake DID make the pros....
I'll go with Adrian....
Taylor hurt before his prime.....Blake DID make the pros....
I'll go with Adrian....
Blake or Taylor...
- Thread starter spartanhusker
- Start date
Blake was great. Now the Drake, on the other hand.......
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Not trying to bash the former Martinez, but Adrian is a better freshman QB than Taylor even before his injury, and that's true freshman vs. redshirt. For that matter, imo, AM is already a better QB than TM was at any point during his time here.
Now it's just a matter of compiling the career stats. In this offense, which he hasn't come close to maximizing yet, he will put up video game numbers if he stays healthy. The record book keeper is going to get a workout over the next 2-3 years. And this time, those numbers should actually translate into meaningful wins.
If Frost did nothing else with his first transitional recruiting class, finding the best freshman QB in the country was a two-strike, two-out, bottom-of-the-9th grand slam that left the park.
Now it's just a matter of compiling the career stats. In this offense, which he hasn't come close to maximizing yet, he will put up video game numbers if he stays healthy. The record book keeper is going to get a workout over the next 2-3 years. And this time, those numbers should actually translate into meaningful wins.
If Frost did nothing else with his first transitional recruiting class, finding the best freshman QB in the country was a two-strike, two-out, bottom-of-the-9th grand slam that left the park.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Arm Punt yet, as he's NU's Career Passing Yards (8,871), Total Offense (10,690), Pass Completions (625), TD Passes (67), Career 250 Yard Passing Games (14) and Career 300 Yard Total Offense leader (11). I loved the guy, but AM is gonna shatter every one of those records.
That pretty much goes without saying. Taylor was a great threat as a runner, but his passing left a lot to be desired. Adrian is just as great, if not better as a passer than a runner.
Adrian doesn't have the raw juice that healthy Taylor did as a runner, but he's already better as a passer. If healthy, he'll destroy those records.
Was trying to exercise some restraint but it seems nearly everyone is in consensus. Despite all the records he holds, I honestly don't even consider TM to be a QB. If nothing else, he never leaps to mind when I think back on the great QBs at Nebraska.
So glad to have a staff that doesn't fill out a roster like it's Pop Warner league.
After he hurt his ankle, we had to imagine Taylor with Taylor's speed.
I want to imagine Taylor with Adrian's lateral quickness, release, and footwork.
I also want to imagine AM with Roy Helu, Rex Burkhead, and that 2010 defense.
Dude, if we had one more year of Ganz, we would've won it all as we already had all of the pieces to the offense less a QB
This is a key distinction...Tmart had to run to be effective...15 times a game...and this meant he had no chance to finish a season healthy. Amart can be more similar to an oregon qb..only running a few times a game and scrambling out of bounds. He is very similar physically to that guy who plays for the chiefs...
There's about 13 Big Ten head coaches that would disagree with you about T Martinez being a qb since they chose him as All B1G his junior year.
He may not be up there with Frazier, Gill and Crouch but he's in that next group with Vince, Tagge, and Frost. I think Taylor is definitely better than the Gdowski's, Zac Taylor's and Joe Ganz's of the world
His output certainly ranks favorably in terms of the others you mentioned. But he also had four years of Bo forcing a square peg into a round hole because he had no better options at QB. You're going to rack up numbers when you get all the snaps and never have to worry about losing your job due to repeated, back-breaking mistakes.
But TM better than Zac Taylor, the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year? Are you f-ing serious? I'm sure quite a few Big 12 coaches would disagree with you on that one, Bob.
TM is definitely better than guys like Ganz or Armstrong. I think both TM and Zac Taylor are on the same level. Both very good, but not great qb's.
Looking back, I'll admit to being too harsh in regards to TM. He really did put together a solid 2012 before injuries finally did him in his senior year. Definitely his best year passing (62%/2871 yds/23 tds/12 ints) along with 1,000 yds and 10 tds on the ground. Certainly nothing to sneeze at and worthy of B1G honors.
The rest of his career (and even that year) was a mixed bag, but through all that he endured a conference switch, Bo eating his face off on the sidelines, non-stop fan criticism and even a viral, satirical comic that painted him as the football equivalent of Brick Tamland. Even when you have Lauren Cook to keep you warm at night, that couldn't have been easy.
When we needed his arm to win, we were usually doomed. But at times, against the right opponent, he was absolutely electric. The Washington and K-State games his freshman year will always leap to mind. His speed and near-instant acceleration were otherworldly.
When I say I don't think of him as a QB, it's because he wasn't a natural QB in the least, and few would argue that. He was an athlete playing the QB position even beyond the levels of NU's triple option QBs who weren't always natural passers but were at least serviceable. Taylor's inaccuracy was one thing, but he also had a propensity for the arched-back "arm punt" off his back foot with 29 ints in 44 career games.
It's like when teams bring a ridiculous athlete occasionally at wildcat QB to spell the main guy or confuse the defense in the red zone. Except Taylor was our all-time wildcat QB and we had no main guy. It was literally Pop Warner ball where you put the fastest kid at QB and let him outrun everyone else as many times as he can. It worked well against bad teams, mostly worked against average teams and failed miserably against elite teams.
But his speed was a game-changing weapon and one I wish we'd utilized more effectively/less predictably. Imagine if we had a QB with an arm throwing screen passes to him? Or actually using him as a wildcat QB in the red zone? Or anything that would have maximized his talent, kept him close to 100% and made NU less one-dimensional?
Taylor was Taylor and Bo was Bo. We were never going to the mountaintop with that duo, but they did manage to win a fair number of games. That said, it's beyond refreshing to have a QB that can both run and pass and a coach who knows how to best utilize his team's collective skills. Hallelujah.
The rest of his career (and even that year) was a mixed bag, but through all that he endured a conference switch, Bo eating his face off on the sidelines, non-stop fan criticism and even a viral, satirical comic that painted him as the football equivalent of Brick Tamland. Even when you have Lauren Cook to keep you warm at night, that couldn't have been easy.
When we needed his arm to win, we were usually doomed. But at times, against the right opponent, he was absolutely electric. The Washington and K-State games his freshman year will always leap to mind. His speed and near-instant acceleration were otherworldly.
When I say I don't think of him as a QB, it's because he wasn't a natural QB in the least, and few would argue that. He was an athlete playing the QB position even beyond the levels of NU's triple option QBs who weren't always natural passers but were at least serviceable. Taylor's inaccuracy was one thing, but he also had a propensity for the arched-back "arm punt" off his back foot with 29 ints in 44 career games.
It's like when teams bring a ridiculous athlete occasionally at wildcat QB to spell the main guy or confuse the defense in the red zone. Except Taylor was our all-time wildcat QB and we had no main guy. It was literally Pop Warner ball where you put the fastest kid at QB and let him outrun everyone else as many times as he can. It worked well against bad teams, mostly worked against average teams and failed miserably against elite teams.
But his speed was a game-changing weapon and one I wish we'd utilized more effectively/less predictably. Imagine if we had a QB with an arm throwing screen passes to him? Or actually using him as a wildcat QB in the red zone? Or anything that would have maximized his talent, kept him close to 100% and made NU less one-dimensional?
Taylor was Taylor and Bo was Bo. We were never going to the mountaintop with that duo, but they did manage to win a fair number of games. That said, it's beyond refreshing to have a QB that can both run and pass and a coach who knows how to best utilize his team's collective skills. Hallelujah.
I may have sold Zac short...but I don't think he was definitively better than TMart. While close, I think TMart's junior season was better than Zac's senior season.
TMart--Passing
Yds - 2871
Pct. - 62%
TD's - 23
Ints - 12
QB Rating - 141.6
ZTaylor--Passing
Yds - 3197
Pct. - 59.6
TD's - 26
Ints - 8
QB Rating - 146.1
While Zac has a slight edge as a passer, TMart has the definite edge as a runner.
TMart--Rushing
Yds - 1019
Avg. - 5.2
TDs - 10
ZTaylor--Rushing
Yds - Negative 32
Avg. - Negative .5
TDs - 1
The above is simply looking at their best years. Over the course of their careers TMart's numbers are certainly ahead of Zac's.
Tmart's QB Passer Rating is better (136.3 for TMart to 130.3 for ZTaylor)
Tmart threw less Ints per game (.66 for TMart to .77 for ZTaylor)
Tmart was more accurate (59.8 for TMart to 57.3 for ZTaylor)
Tmart had more Y/A (7.5 for TMart to 7.1 for ZTaylor)
I won't bother to list the rushing differences between the two.
TMart--Passing
Yds - 2871
Pct. - 62%
TD's - 23
Ints - 12
QB Rating - 141.6
ZTaylor--Passing
Yds - 3197
Pct. - 59.6
TD's - 26
Ints - 8
QB Rating - 146.1
While Zac has a slight edge as a passer, TMart has the definite edge as a runner.
TMart--Rushing
Yds - 1019
Avg. - 5.2
TDs - 10
ZTaylor--Rushing
Yds - Negative 32
Avg. - Negative .5
TDs - 1
The above is simply looking at their best years. Over the course of their careers TMart's numbers are certainly ahead of Zac's.
Tmart's QB Passer Rating is better (136.3 for TMart to 130.3 for ZTaylor)
Tmart threw less Ints per game (.66 for TMart to .77 for ZTaylor)
Tmart was more accurate (59.8 for TMart to 57.3 for ZTaylor)
Tmart had more Y/A (7.5 for TMart to 7.1 for ZTaylor)
I won't bother to list the rushing differences between the two.
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Their styles were so incredibly different, it's difficult to draw comparisons. I still think Zac was the better QB for his system, but I place a higher value on QBs that minimize turnovers and provide reliable production vs. boom or bust. Even with a Big 12 POY trophy on his mantle, I still think he was underrated. But agree to disagree I guess.
Comparing their career numbers is kinda silly though. You can ding Zac for going the JUCO route if you want, but Nebraska has had plenty of JUCO studs that will never have gaudy totals. Lavonte David's 285 career tackles look puny compared to Ruud's 432, but his production per year was at an all-time level. Just an example.
Anyway, good discussion and sorry for firing back so hard before. Too many trolls around here lately means all guns are loaded and the safeties are off. But no need for friendly fire.
I like the good discussion too. Frankly, I knew TMart's numbers were better than most remember but I didn't realize Zac's were so good.
As far as those career numbers, none of them I gave were cumulative totals. (Obviously that would be ridiculous.) They were all averages. In fact you would expect TMart to have worse averages because those numbers include his freshman and sophomore years. Zac's numbers only include his junior and senior season when one would expect a more mature qb.
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I think what Zac was really good at was converting on 3rd downs, whether in the air or with his feet at times and that's what made him a better qb than his numbers were. We haven't had a qb that has that kind of intuition on 3rd downs in a long time, and why I think TM and Zac Taylor were both at a similar level, even though they had completely different styles.
Zac's two-year career was definitely a tale of two seasons. His junior year wasn't pretty but that was also year two of a painful, awkward transition from triple option to West Coast. He also had no redshirt year to adjust. Are we not taking situations, coaching, surrounding talent or anything else into consideration other than stats on paper?
Even when we only look at only the stats, you're cherry picking here. You actually cited "less interceptions per game" as one in favor of TM. Zac threw for 5,850 yards in two years vs. 7,258 in four years for TM. Of course Zac would have more INTs per game. Even with way more passing in ZT's offense, it was still very close. So that's really not a good one for TM when look at the big picture.
That would be like me saying Zac had less fumbles per game. Technically true, but again, a silly stat that tells us next to nothing. How about looking at a universal QB evaluator that everyone uses, like TD-INT ratio?
2006 ZT: 3.25
2012 TM: 1.92
Career ZT: 2.25
Career TM: 1.93
That's one stat, but it tells a very different story. Since this whole thing started with you bringing up TM's 2012 season and me bringing up ZT's 2006 year, let's focus on that comparison. As you can see, it wasn't even close (3.25 to 1.92).
Even Zac's career average was better than TM's best and that's a pretty critical evaluation tool for any QB in any offense. It takes out offensive style, volume and other biases. Yes, TM brought it on the ground, but how much are those yards worth if you constantly give the ball away? Efficiency matters a lot. You can't sweep away all your mistakes just because you're a fast runner. Not against teams with a pulse anyway.
And even though he only spent two years here, Zac showed a propensity for improvement that TM did not despite having twice as much time. And again, that was as the team itself was trying to morph into something completely opposite of what it had been previously. The fact that he was able to put together a CPOY season with spare parts on O and Cosgrove's D applying even more pressure to score is all the more impressive.
But maybe a better thing to look at would be what happened after each guy left. In 2006, we went 9-5. In 2007, we went 5-7 with Sam Keller and Callahan lost his job. In 2013, in what should have been TM's senior year following his all-B1G junior year, he's hurt pretty much the whole season and only plays four games. So Armstrong steps in, we go 9-4 and barely miss a beat. The next year, when TM is actually gone, we go 9-4 with TA again.
If TM was such a great QB, we should have felt his absence more. Instead, I remember people being relieved at the time because we had a QB that could throw a little while still bringing the running angle. And TA was no great passer, either. I honestly can't recall anyone clamoring for TM after he left. Maybe a little in the beginning of 2013 when he was supposed to be a senior starter, but not much after TA played a few games and everyone saw he was essentially on the same level already.
Bottom line, if I had to win a big game against a good team, I'm choosing 2006 ZT every time. If I want to see a QB rack up yards doing his best Tecmo Bowl impression against an also-ran, I'm choosing 2012 TM. (Actually I'd choose 2010 TM when he still had all his gears, but you catch my drift.)
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The first part of your argument is reasonable, but the last part is just dumb. The 2007 defense was much worse than the 2006 defense while after TMs final year it was relatively similar. Sam Keller was also much worse than Tommy Armstrong. Your argument on who was missed more doesn't make any sense.
And you're a bitter old man that inadvertently(?) trolls everyone here 24/7 with the same negative attitude and stupid, reactionary opinions you always express. Really don't care what you think, jar. If anything, I take your disagreement as a compliment.
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As much as I should just walk away, I know you’ll tell yourself that you won because I didn’t refute your babble. And I could live with that, but then you’ll just feel encouraged to inflict all of us with more of your ill-informed nonsense in the future. And that’s not good for anyone. Not even you, oldjar07.
Of course there are differences in any comparison. I’ve made that argument all along in response to exclusively comparing stats in a vacuum. Stats do offer a quantifiable basis for comparison though, and QB Rating is one that Bob used to boost TM previously. While it has its flaws just like any stat, it was specifically designed to evaluate QBs.
Let’s look at the QB ratings of Sam Keller and Tommy Armstrong, shall we? I also included completion % and TD/INT ratio for good measure.
Sam Keller
2003 Arizona State 104.8
2004 Arizona State 151.3
2005 Arizona State 145.8
2007 Nebraska 133.7
==================
Career QB Rating: 138.3
Arizona State only: 142.1
Career completion %: 60.5
Best completion %: 63.1
Career TD/INT: 1.90
ASU only TD/INT: 2.36
Tommy Armstrong
2013 Nebraska 124.3
2014 Nebraska 133.0
2015 Nebraska 128.6
2016 Nebraska 123.9
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Career QB Rating: 128.3
Career completion %: 53.3
Best completion %: 55.2
Career TD/INT: 1.52
Best TD/INT: 1.83 (2014)
Sam’s career averages are better than Tommy’s best across the board and it’s not even close. TA did some damage on the ground as well, but not nearly enough to make up for those abysmal efficiency numbers. And again, I was specifically comparing them at the time they replaced their predecessor.
For Tommy, that was his worst statistical season. He threw for 996 yds and 9 TDs vs. 8 INTs and ran for 202 in 9 games. He was a freshman coming off the bench unexpectedly and he pretty much performed like one. And yet, he was able to replace Taylor with hardly a blip on the radar. It was basically the exact same season we had seen under TM for three years running.
Meanwhile, Sam Keller arrived with some fanfare. He wasn’t an elite QB by any means, but he appeared to be an ideal WCO fit. He also brought three years of experience at a P5 school, including one as a starter with a solid 145.8 rating and a near-upset of USC that had NU fans in a frenzy during his recruitment. It was essentially the modern-day equivalent of a splashy graduate transfer.
There's almost no comparison that favors TA, but SK with four years of P5 experience coming into 2007 (including a redshirt year at NU) absolutely wipes the floor with freshman Tommy. The differences in offense are irrelevant in this case. It's a bloodbath any way you slice it.
And no shit the defense was worse in 2007. Everything was worse in 2007. A good portion of the team absolutely gave up on the season after the Mizzou game. But even that below-average season from Sam (by his standards) was rated higher than any season TA ever had. And there’s no doubt the returning CPOY would have been a big improvement over Sam. Thus, the harder-to-replace argument that shouldn't have been so hard for you to follow.
Just like all the visiting trolls around here, you clearly couldn’t be bothered to work the Google machine for 10 seconds. I’ve actually wondered for awhile if you might just be an elaborate troll slowly working us all over with a well-executed long con. If you are, bravo sir. I take everything back. Your work is actually brilliant.
But if you’re not a troll, what, exactly, is wrong with you?
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TM's wheels were back in 2012 when he was BiG TeN 1st team and 2nd team Quarterback.
2012 TMart plus 2009 defense = undefeated national championship.
2012 TMart plus 2009 defense = undefeated national championship.
"Arm Punt" as dubbed by the morons from the east has a better completion percentage than their first round quarterback, Stanley.
Going in dry in November Ferentz freaks, hills have eyes alums. Gonna drag the chicken skin.
I was being, though I loved TA, his precision passes often turned out to be an arm punt.
T-Mart initially got hurt against Texas in 2010 and up until that point, he was unstoppable running the ball... T-Mart wasn't ready in 09 even though they almost burned his shirt that year. Ganz was the key in 09 if he woulda had one more year. Ganz though he was nowhere as fast as TM was a complete package as although he could run, he could throw 1000x better than T-Mart ever could. Just sayin
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