Tuesday Lunch Notes: Martinez Didn't Improve in 2011?

When I read the Bleacher Report entry on the "Taylor Martinez Experience", I was reminded of Mark Twain's famous quote: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."  Adam Kramer of Kegs'n'Eggs fame reminds us that Martinez's completion percentage actually went down in 2011.  Statistically, he's correct. But Kramer comes off as a writer who watched some highlight videos and looked at those statistics to draw his conclusions.  Watching Martinez last season, I think Martinez definitely improved.  His running numbers were down, yes.  Mostly because he was asked to avoid contact.  If you look at his  passing statistics from the Ohio State going forward, you definitely saw improvement.  Completion rates of 73%, 59%, 54%, 76%, 50%, 39%, 55%, and 63%.  Better for the most part.  Oh, and only two interceptions.

Is Martinez's throwing motion ugly?  Yep... Some call them "armpunts", which probably isn't a bad depiction. But for as ugly as Martinez's throwing motion is, the uglier part was when the ball arrived at it's destination.  And usually that wasn't Martinez's fault.  Usually the ball was there; it was the receivers who had the dropsies.  Save for one Kenny Bell, who looks to have a very promising football career ahead of him.  And I still hold out hope that Steve Calhoun is still working on fundamentals with Martinez.  We didn't have a spring game to evaluate Martinez, but reports were out that he had improved.

Bottom line is that until September, writers can only go off of what they've previously seen.  And if all you've seen are blooper reels, ugly still photos, and replays of the Wisconsin game, that's going to frame your opinion on Taylor Martinez.  But I would suggest only writing those opinions in pencil.

Mike'l Severe of KOZN-1620 AM radio tweeted on Friday that the Nighthawks may be back after all:

So we are close to finding out all the details about a 4th UFL season. Are you looking forward to the Omaha Nighthawks returning this fall?

We'll see about that.  Severe has been involved with the Nighthawks all along, so he certainly knows more what's going on behind the scenes than I do.  But I still think it's going to be tough to resurrect the Nighthawks at this point.  Not impossible.  But difficult to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

We're still waiting on UNO to name a new assistant hockey coach to replace Mike Hastings, who left in mid-April to become the head coach at Mankato State.  (OK, ok...Minnesota State.)  Dean Blais said shortly afterwards he wasn't in a hurry, and six weeks later, we're still waiting.  The rumor mill had fixated on St. Cloud State assistant coach Steve Johnson (formerly of USHL teams in Fargo and Lincoln), but that was two weeks ago.  For what it's worth, Fred Harbinson's Penticton Vees team claimed Canada's national championship a couple of weeks ago.  I originally attributed the long search to waiting for Harbinson's season to end, but even that has now passed.