Nebraska Football: Adrian Martinez has odd day in difficult loss

The Nebraska Football quarterback is struggling right now.

It was a weird game for Nebraska Football quarterback Adrian Martinez. It was probably one of the weirder games I have seen any quarterback play. In a tale of two halves, Martinez and Nebraska Football failed to get a victory.

In the first half and even some of the second half, he looked like he was all out of sorts. He was missing easy throws, something that would come back to bite him. In addition, he looked uncomfortable in the pocket. Sure, his offensive line was not doing them any favors, but he was even hesitant to scramble. There was one particular play in which he had plenty of open field on a scramble, and he elected to throw it instead. He just did not look like himself.

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As the game progressed and we entered the later stages of the game, Martinez looked better. It was almost as if something clicked. He began to hit his throws and that allowed him to feel more comfortable in the pocket. Martinez began to throw to wide receiver JD Spielman as well, and it showed in the box score. For the game, Spielman recorded six catches for 123 yards, averaging 20.5 yards per catch.

Throughout the course of the game, Martinez missed key throws. There was a pass to Kanawai Noa that was overthrown, a pass to Jack Stoll that was missed up the right seam, and a pass to Stoll that was thrown behind him. Watching it unfold, the missed pass to Noa was particularly a killer.

Now, Martinez did have some strong points today. He finished the game with two rushing touchdowns. One of them came at the 4:20 mark in the fourth quarter. That allowed for Nebraska to take the lead. Unfortunately, the defense just couldn’t hold things. Saturday’s game was certainly not the worst performance of Martinez’s but it was far from his best. In fact, I would go so far to say only the second half was worth writing home about.

In any event, it was an  up-and-down day. Something is wrong with Adrian Martinez and he has regressed. This is not the same quarterback we saw last year, and that should certainly worry Nebraska. Now, Nebraska enters a key stretch where they have to win to out of their next three games in order to make a bowl game. That is certainly not an easy task, particularly with two ranked teams in that part of the schedule. It remains to be seen how effective Martinez will be from here on out. One thing is for certain: Adrian Martinez is in a rut, and it doesn’t look like he is getting out of it anytime soon.