Nebraska transfer QB Adrian Martinez wins big as ‘game manager’ in Kansas State debut
Myriad words have been used to describe the way Adrian Martinez has played quarterback throughout his long college football career.
Some new ones were added to the list following his debut with Kansas State. After the Wildcats put the finishing touches on a businesslike 34-0 victory over South Dakota on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, his teammates labeled him as a “game manager.”
That can be a dreaded term for a quarterback. No one grows up dreaming about managing a game. Everyone would much rather throw touchdown passes and sprint past defenders when they’re asked to run.
But Martinez is good with the new description. He takes it as a compliment. After four years of putting up eye-popping stats and rarely winning, he was more than happy to take a backseat while Malik Knowles and Deuce Vaughn provided the highlights.
“If that’s what the game calls for, if that’s what this team needs, then that is what I’m going to be,” Martinez said. “I think we have a lot of playmakers. I don’t need to put the team on my back, per se. I have got to do what the coaches want me to do and what this team needs. Tonight maybe it was a little bit more of a distributor and a game-manager type. But we got the win. That’s what matters.”
His first game in a purple uniform was an interesting one.
Some might call it underwhelming. Others would argue there was little to criticize when you look at the final score.
“I thought he handled everything really well for his first time,” K-State coach Chris Klieman said. “We changed a lot of things offensively. We were not what you saw last year or even in spring ball. We were tempo most of the time, and I thought our operation was really good. I thought Adrian did a great job with the operational stuff.
“Obviously, we probably missed a couple of chances. Sometimes there was protection issues. Sometimes we just didn’t locate a receiver, but I thought he played really well and I thought he played within himself. The one thing is, we didn’t turn the football over. When you don’t turn the football over and you block a punt and you rush the ball for 297 yards, good things are going to happen.”
At times, Martinez barely resembled the dual-threat quarterback who amassed 10,792 yards and scored 80 touchdowns with the Nebraska Cornhuskers. He completed 11 of 15 passes on Saturday, but his throws only resulted in 53 yards. Averaging 3.5 yards per pass is not normally good enough to win.
By comparison, third-stringer Jake Rubley replaced him in the fourth quarter and completed all four of his attempts for 42 yards. K-State players jokingly labeled him as the team’s leading passer afterward.
Martinez benefited from good protection on most of his drop-backs, and he used his time in the pocket to go through his progressions. But he never forced anything. Outside of one deep pass to Phillip Brooks, which barely missed and fell incomplete, he opted for short throws and check downs.
When he was asked to run the ball, he showed good speed and picked up a few first downs with his feet. He finished with 39 rushing yards and a touchdown on 13 attempts. He was so fired up after his first score that he exchanged a few high-fives with fans behind the south end zone.
But that was his lone true highlight of the night.
He spent most of the rest of the game handing the ball off to his teammates as the Wildcats rushed for 297 yards. Vaughn led the way with 126 yards and a touchdown, while Knowles opened the game with a 75-yard touchdown run.
“That’s a testament to our offensive line,” Vaughn said. “The way they played tonight, it was one of those things where we didn’t get to our entire playbook. We ran the ball pretty well, to the point where if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We were able to keep some of those things in the shadows going into next week and keep some plays that we could have ran tonight away from a team like Missouri.”
Maybe the game would have gone differently with a quarterback who forced things.
“He played great,” K-State receiver Kade Warner said of Martinez. “He was efficient, and it was awesome. It was exactly the type of football he needs to play. Obviously, we would all love for him to throw for 400, 500 yards, but at the end of the day we won and that’s all we really care about.”
Added Vaughn: “He was a game manager. He made plays with his legs and good things happened when the ball was in his hands. That’s what we need him to do. I feel like he’s only going to build off this.”
To be fair, Martinez didn’t need to do anything special to lead his team to this victory. The Wildcats won so easily that coaches pulled him at the end of the third quarter and let Rubley finish things out.
It was the polar opposite of his time with the Huskers. At Nebraska, Martinez put up dazzling individual stats while his team usually lost. He never won more than five games in a season at his old school. There wasn’t much for him to brag about against the Coyotes, but he left the stadium undefeated.
He was a winner.
As long as he is associated with that word, he doesn’t care how anyone else describes him as a quarterback.
“I want to stay true to that,” Martinez said. “We had some mental errors tonight, but as long as we don’t beat ourselves I think we have a really good chance against anybody.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2022 at 11:49 PM with the headline "Nebraska transfer QB Adrian Martinez wins big as ‘game manager’ in Kansas State debut."