Halloween: Nebraska is 7-1, ranked in the top 10 in both major polls and in the top 20 in total and scoring offense. The Cornhuskers have just easily dispatched undefeated Missouri, 31-17, a week after snapping Oklahoma State's 6-0 start in Stillwater. Both have come on the heels of dominant road blowouts over Washington and Kansas State. The 'Huskers are averaging 38 points on 459 yards per game, making speedy redshirt freshman quarterback Taylor Martinez is one of the breakout stars of the season.
Two months later: Nebraska has closed the year by losing three of its last four, failing to top 20 points in any of them, including a six-point, zero-touchdown effort in a loss at Texas A&M and a seven-point flop against Washington in the Holiday Bowl – a little over three months after throttling the Huskies by five touchdowns in Seattle. In between, the 'Huskers went three-and-out eight times and failed to score at all in the second half of a 23-20 loss to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship Game. For the year, the offense now comes in 60 yards and a full touchdown below its season averages at Halloween, and has fallen into the bottom half of the Big 12 on both counts. Martinez has failed to run for a touchdown in the last nine games, and snapped a five-game streak without throwing for a score with a second quarter TD in the bowl game, Nebraska's only points in the stunning loss. What happened?
The short answer is that Martinez got hurt, spraining his ankle with the victory in hand against Missouri. Then he got hurt again, injuring his foot early in the debacle at Texas A&M, gamely returning in the second half to no particular end. That was the same night that he incurred the very visible wrath of coach Bo Pelini on the sideline, and the transfer rumors began in earnest amid a sense of general decline. Even with Martinez ostensibly healthy, the embarrassment in the Holiday Bowl was the final sputtering of a team on 'E.'
In the bigger picture, though, the end of 2010 looked an awful lot like the majority of 2009, minus the uplifting bowl redemption. The '09 Cornhuskers were inept enough offensively to lose three games in which the defense allowed fewer than 17 points, including the infamous, 13-12 loss to Texas on the final snap of the Big 12 Championship Game, in which the 'Huskers failed to score a touchdown. Much of that failure was laid at the feet of quarterback Zac Lee, a one-dimensional "manager" type who failed to generate enough of a passing game – or at least enough respect for a hypothetical passing game – to keep defenses from ganging up on the respectable ground attack. The offense finished 11th in the conference in passing and total offense, with an abysmal 105.1 efficiency rating in Big 12 games.
With the added threat of Martinez running out of the shotgun, the 2010 attack was quite a bit better than "respectable" on the ground, as it turned out, softening up secondaries for big gains downfield: Martinez had 150 yards (including a 24-yard touchdown pass) on just seven completions at Washington, 128 yards (including a 79-yard touchdown pass) on just five completions at Kansas State, 116 yards (including a 40-yard touchdown pass) on six completions against Missouri, and 323 yards with five touchdown passes at Oklahoma State. After the injury against Mizzou, though, it was all downhill. Martinez's next start was a lackluster, 20-3 win over North Division whipping boy Kansas, and his last three starts yielded a grand total of 33 points, seven scoreless quarters, a pass efficiency rating well below 100 and a single sustained touchdown drive covering longer than 12 yards. By the Big 12 Championship Game, Martinez looked equally uncomfortable in the pocket (he double-clutched his way into seven sacks at the hands of Oklahoma defenders) and ineffective as a runner, to the point that tailback Rex Burkhead started taking regular Wildcat snaps in the second half – with almost no threat whatsoever to throw – in search of some kind of spark.
It didn't help Martinez's cause that backup Cody Green cameoed with a solid, 10-for-13, two-touchdown effort in a 45-17 rout over Colorado in the regular season finale. But Green didn't see the field as the game plan deteriorated against Oklahoma and was brutal in relief in the Holiday Bowl, completing a paltry 3 of 12 passes. Despite the rumors and apparent clashes with Pelini, there doesn't seem to be any doubt that Martinez is still the starting quarterback as Nebraska embarks on its exodus to the Big Ten. Whether he can still be the electric playmaker that briefly had Big 12 defenses shaking in their cleats in October, on the other hand, will be one of the burning questions of the year.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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