Nebraska Football: Adrian Martinez made statistical jumps in tough season

Martinez got stronger for Nebraska football.

I will be completely honest with you when it comes to my assessment of Nebraska football quarterback Adrian Martinez. I thought he did really well in some areas, where he struggled in others. Looking at the numbers, he did improve in some areas statistically. One particular area had me intrigued.

As noted in a report from Brian Christopherson247 sports, Martinez  completed 71.5% of his passes. He completed 59.4% of his passes in 2019. This was an interesting number to me because it indicated how well he performed during the back end of the season. There was no doubt in the early part of the season that he struggled.  However. he saved his best for last.

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He went 18-of-20 against Iowa, and 23-of-30 against Purdue. Even though he didn’t necessarily pass the ball too well against Rutgers, he still was able to make a positive impact in that game despite the number of turnovers he had.

There was no doubt that he had a better second half of the season. I personally would chalk it up to the threat of Luke McCaffrey breathing down his neck as well as him looking more comfortable in the pocket.

The Purdue game was when I really started to see him kind of play better. He looked comfortable and the combination of him and Wan’Dale Robinson was in sync quite a bit in that game.

Something was also noticeable about the way Martinez played. Instead of forcing the game to him, the game came to him. Instead of trying to force the throws to his receivers, he took what the defense gave him and made his reads quickly. That made an enormous difference, and you could see it in his play.

All things considered, Martinez did manage to play decently towards the end. He looked more relaxed, and made more confident decisions. I attribute this to the fact that seeing Luke McCaffrey play made him take a step back a bit and refocus. That’s not a bad thing and all, sometimes that’s what a quarterback needs.  Especially as a Nebraska football player, things tend to come at you pretty fast.

Martinez did have troubles finding his reads at times, and that continued in the second half of the season. nevertheless, he was able to overcome not more so in the second half of the season. Instead of getting in his own hand, he just made plays and react.

Although I wish he performed this well throughout the entire season, it was good to see him end the season on a high note. In what was a rough 2020 calendar year, it gave us something to cheer about.