SALON

Monday, Sep 24, 2012 9:01 PM UTC

Neb’s Martinez leads Big Ten in passing efficiency

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Neb's Martinez leads Big Ten in passing efficiencyNebraska football head coach Bo Pelini speaks at the weekly NCAA college football news conference in Lincoln, Neb., Monday, Sept. 24, 2012. Nebraska hosts Wisconsin on Saturday. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)(Credit: AP)

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Wisconsin figures to see a much different Taylor Martinez on Saturday than the guy they saw a year ago.

Martinez will go into the No. 22 Cornhuskers’ Big Ten opener first in the conference and 10th in the nation in passing efficiency. Last October, Martinez’s three mid-game interceptions turned a close game into a Wisconsin rout.

Martinez said Monday that the long night in Madison was the low point of his career. He spent the offseason trying to become a sharper passer, focusing on his footwork, his throwing motion — and his decision-making. Through four games, the third-year starter has completed 71 percent of his passes for an average of 220 yards a game, and he’s thrown nine touchdowns and one interception.

“The receivers and tight ends and running backs, pretty much the whole offense, have done a great job for me,” Martinez said. “I’ve been getting them the ball and they’ve made some yards.”

At a comparable point last season, Martinez was hitting 51 percent, with four TDs and two interceptions. He finished the year at 56 percent, with 13 TDs and eight interceptions.

Coach Bo Pelini said Martinez’s improvement in the Huskers’ spread-option offense is no surprise.

“People snickered when I said I think Taylor is going to make a huge jump this year, and he has,” Pelini said. “I saw it through the spring, I saw it in practice through fall camp, and he just needs to stay on the same track. If he keeps playing the way he is — and we expect him to — it makes our offense pretty hard to stop.”

The true measure of Martinez’s improvement is his efficiency rating. The rating is based on an NCAA formula that attempts to objectively evaluate passers, regardless of their team’s style of offense, by taking into account completion percentage, yards per pass, touchdowns per pass and interceptions per pass.

For Martinez, the computer spit out a rating of 180.9, well ahead of his 126.5 last season. When the formula was established in the 1970s, a rating of 100 was considered average. With the more sophisticated passing offenses of the 21st century, a 100 is something less than mediocre.

Martinez’s passing numbers have been put up against less-than-stellar defenses. He struggled in the second half in the Huskers’ biggest game to date, the 36-30 loss at UCLA. Martinez was 13 for 17 in the first half against the Bruins, but he tried to force plays in the second half and was 4 for 14 with an interception.

Martinez occasionally has slipped back into his old habit of throwing off his back foot and behind receivers. Mostly, his accuracy has been spot-on on short and intermediate passes, and his throws have more zip.

“I’ve said numerous times before that I don’t really care about the throwing motion,” running back Rex Burkhead said. “As long as he’s getting it to the receiver, that’s fine with me. He’s having a great start to the year. Hopefully that will continue, and I think it will.”

Wisconsin is 10th in the Big Ten and 83rd nationally in pass defense. The Badgers have given up a league-high eight touchdown passes and are the only defense in the conference without an interception.

Still, the level of competition and the stakes start going up this week, so it won’t be easy for Martinez to keep his passing numbers as high. If he does, he’ll have a shot to break the school-record passer rating of 177.3 set by Gerry Gdowski in Tom Osborne’s triple-option offense in 1989.

Pelini said Martinez’s numbers could be even better than what they are.

“We’ve actually pulled back the reins on him in a few games,” Pelini said. “I don’t think we’ve seen the best of Taylor yet.”

More Eric Olson.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations