Nebraska Football: Adrian Martinez’s stats vs Rutgers sum up his career
By Nathan Dunn
Adrian Martinez’s recent performance for Nebraska football looked familiar.
Scott Frost and the Nebraska Cornhuskers pulled together to win their final game of the season last Friday against Rutgers by a score of 28-21.
From Nebraska’s point of view, there were two standout performers: running back Dedrick Mills and quarterback Adrian Martinez. Mills rushed for a career-high of 191 yards from 25 carries, averaging 7.6 yards. Martinez, on the other hand, turned the ball over four times off of two interceptions and two fumbles lost, but also threw for 255 yards and ran for 157 yards.
Adrian Martinez’s performance was a bit of a summary of his Nebraska football career.
Martinez has some great potential, but the amount of times he turns the ball over holds him back quite a bit. Had he taken better care of the ball, the Huskers could have easily scored 40+ points against a Scarlet Knight defense that simply couldn’t stop the Huskers’ offense. On the other side of things, his character has always given him the ability to bounce back after being put in tough situations.
In Martinez’s freshman year, he showed great potential and led the Cornhuskers to win four of their final six games. He also threw for 17 touchdowns, which still stands as his career-high. Martinez’s sophomore season saw a decline in productivity. He tossed nine interceptions and threw for just 10 touchdowns and threw with less than 60% accuracy.
In the abbreviated 2020 season, Martinez’s junior campaign, he was in-and-out as the quarterback, switching with Luke McCaffrey. Martinez dramatically improved his completion percentage to about 72%. In three fewer games played this year than last year, he equaled his amount of passing and rushing touchdowns with seven in each category.
Coming off a poor performance against Minnesota, where he threw for just 111 yards, Martinez reacted well and was in charge of 412 of the team’s 620 total yards against Rutgers. Even with some adversity with some devastating turnovers, Martinez still trusted in his abilities.
While Martinez isn’t necessarily the best quarterback around, he still deserves a tremendous amount of credit. He could have easily pouted once McCaffrey got the starting job, but instead, he acted as a good teammate would by helping McCaffrey and the Huskers offense, and ended up winning back the starting job. When things got tough and his character was tested, he had an answer that must be appreciated.
Must Read. All-Time Leaders in Passing Yards. light
If Nebraska football is going to have any sort of success next season with Adrian Martinez still in as quarterback for one final year, he is going to have to take better care of the football and continue his progression from last season.