Nebraska's QB Position

Watching the offense sputter last night without a healthy Taylor Martinez made me think about how great next year will be on the Quarterback front. Martinez will have another year in the system and he should be better across the board, which is great. But even more important will be the improved Quarterback depth.

Nebraska's bread and butter is the Zone Read. It's extremely versatile and it allows you to be very creative. To run it successfully, you need an athletic, smart Quarterback. Taylor Martinez is mostly that. He's every bit as athletic as you need. He makes good decisions more times than not, though that's not even close to being good enough. He'll improve though.

The problem is, when Taylor gets hurt Nebraska doesn't have a Quarterback who can run the offensive scheme efficiently enough to move the ball. Instead, they have to make in-game adjustments and all but throw out everything you practiced offensively. That's just not smart or feasible. They try to run the same stuff with Zac Lee and he does about as well as expected, but he can only do so much. He's not too much of a threat when running the ball. He's a smart football player with his reads and I'm comfortable when he drops back to throw.

With Cody Green's, I'm not sure about his ability to make split-second decisions on whether to stick it in the belly of the back or pull it out and take off with it. When they run it with him, which isn't all that often, he seems like he makes good decisions. The problem with him is, it literally takes him 5 steps to get going. His lack of acceleration, in an offense that is predicated on getting a step on the defense, is tough to watch. Which is why they don't run the Zone option much. When throwing, I'm usually not liking what I see. He has a strong arm and that's it.

As I said, I'm comfortable with Zac Lee. He wont make the big mistake. Unfortunately for Nebraska is,

1) He's hurt and he doesn't seem like he's going to be able to help you on the field right now.

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2) He's a Senior. He wont be there next year.

Which is why I personally cannot wait for the arrival of Bubba Starling and Jamal Turner. Both are great runners who will hurt you if you don't account for them on defense. Which is something they don't have at Quarterback with Taylor either severely hobbled or out.

I'm not sure what they'll do next year. Bubba Starling could opt to play Professional or College Baseball. Jamal Turner is going to be fantastic and you'd hate to see Nebraska burn a year of his eligibility by making him ride the bench. Brion Carnes, who is redshirted this year, is an interesting player. He's the third cousin of Nebraska great, Tommie Frazer. Carnes is pretty small(6'1, 180lbs). He's pretty impressive as a passer and he's got enough athletic ability to be sufficient in this offense.

It's going to be interesting to see what the coaching staff does at Quarterback behind Taylor Martinez next year. But any way they do it, the position is going to look a lot better this Spring as opposed to last.