Martinez was in year two of his career after also missing his senior year of HS and injured beside. Of course he wasn't going to look as good doing it as Marcus Mariota behind one of the best centers in the nation that year. The notion of the center needing to identify the "point man" so the blocking assignments can cascade off that really jumped out at me. Think there were ever times that wasn't perfect with a Rs-Fr in there?
Watching that video, you notice a lot of things that are core elements of simple stuff like their read option game that are weaknesses for NU. It was much more than just Martinez struggling to pass, they couldn't run the ball either. If the OL did ok the back missed a hole, or the WRs missed their blocks. Next play the back sees it but a tackle misses a block.
You name it, NU screwed it up last year. Looked like a team of guys who didn't always know/do their job and didn't have anyone behind them to force them to the bench for it.
I have very low expectations of the WR group this year, new coach or no. Especially after Spielman quit, they are a totally unproven group outside of Wan'dale and Warner. Wan'dale is young and undersized and Kade is an average athlete.
The WR room is no further ahead in my opinion in 2020 than they were in 2018 when Frost came here and identified the position as a huge area of need. We have no idea in Manning or Betts will ever play a down for NU, let alone have success. Aside from that we have a collection of dudes who are like 5'10 but had nice 200 times in high school.
Basically my one and only expectation for that group is that they block effectively. Don't be at all surprised if some 6'2 walk-on none of us have heard of ends up with a lot of PT because he can block.
It will be a challenge to quickly develop the WR room. I agree expectations might be too high with so little proven talent and so little time to establish chemistry with the newcomers, which contributes to tempo.
I would mention Hickman has been lauded for his blocking. His size will be an advantage (nice swap for what they probably wanted Justin McGriff to do), but he won’t be a burner running past DBs.
Manning coming in ready to play may be the single most critical piece. From there, Nance got some early praise after a couple days of spring ball.
Alante Brown, if healthy, has at least been on campus and around the team since spring.
What can Houston do? He seemed to be the one slipping.
Combined with losing Hunt, Jones, McGriff, Legrone, and Chase (Woodyard,Williams, Noa, Watt...Washington) Frost has unfortunately lost so many pass catching players he recruited. Rebuild hasn’t gone smooth for pass catching so far.
I know one of Betts’ teachers. They gave an opinion about his utter laziness with school work.
School doesn’t always translate to football, but I would not feel confident he’s going to attack the playbook and film at the “above and beyond” level that would be necessary for him to excel in year 1.