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A Couple Days After the Oklahoma Loss And Shawn Watson Still Sucks

For the second year in a row, Nebraska lost a championship game because the offense couldn't generate points when they needed them.
For the second year in a row, Nebraska lost a championship game because the offense couldn't generate points when they needed them.

It's been a couple days and I'm still completely disgusted with Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson. At some point I mean to go back and diagram some drive charts to figure out whether my disgust is misplaced. I need to find out if I'm disgusted that because Nebraska's offense didn't execute on the field or to prove what I'm really thinking - that Shawn Watson needs to find another job.

The Omaha World Herald's Dirk Chatelain did his part in convincing me of the latter when he did some research into how Nebraska fared when their offense was behind or tied after halftime. The only "pretty" about it is that it's pretty damning as to how poorly Shawn Watson's offense did when it was needed the most.

 

For me the most damning part of the article comes here:

Here's another way to look at it:

The 38 Burkhead touches produced 13 first downs and the touchdown at Iowa State.

The 74 other touches produced nine first downs.

That's what Burkhead does under pressure. What about Taylor Martinez?

In the sampling of 19 drives in which NU trailed or was tied after halftime, Martinez was on the field for 12. Keep in mind that 10 of those 12 occurred against Texas A&M and OU.

Martinez's 12 drives produced seven punts, two giveaways, two turnovers on downs and one field goal.

Three points.

Ouch!

Martinez can be forgiven for his play because he's a first-year starting quarterback. Even though they're painful to watch, mistakes are to be expected.

One thing about Martinez that I still don't get. The coaches seemed so protective of Cody Green's confidence, yet when it came to the second half against Oklahoma, you could see Martinez struggling with the passing game, yet Watson left him out there - and worse yet, didn't call plays where Martinez could be successful.

You might say that Martinez failed under pressure, but I don't think that's the right conclusion. I think it's Shawn Watson that's failing under pressure.

[Site note: I have received a couple emails about the amount of profanity here lately, particularly in the comments section. I know that I have a tendency to get pretty emotional and at the same time, pretty profane, so that's on me. Let's clean it up a little - the guideline is fairly simple - if you can say it on prime time television, it's okay here.]