Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez was on a full upswing heading into the 2013 season. He was on the fringes of the preseason Heisman conversation, the Cornhuskers were ranked No. 18 in the preseason AP poll and Martinez was set to go down as the best quarterback in program history since Eric Crouch.
But that’s not how the story was written for Martinez this season.
Instead, the senior out of Corona, Calif. was limited to four games before a foot injury cost him his final year in Lincoln. But even before that, Martinez was struggling. In the four games he played, he only reached the 200-yard mark through the air once and only totaled 117 yards on the ground.
His last game was on Oct. 26, a 34-23 loss to Minnesota where, after taking three weeks off to try and heal, he threw for just 139 yards, rushed for 16 more and had a QB rating of just 96.6.
One week later, Martinez watched Nebraska fans almost completely forget about him and embrace a new hero: Ron Kellogg III.
In the Cornhuskers’ first game in the post-Martinez era, Kellogg III came in to relieve Tommy Armstrong and etched his name into program history with a Hail Mary pass in the game’s final moments that was caught for a game-winning touchdown.
In those moments, the Cornhusker players mobbed their quarterback on the field. Fans in Lincoln had their icon. But it wasn’t Martinez.
It doesn’t seem so long ago that Martinez was the talk of college football as the hot new freshman commodity. His coming out party was on Oct. 7, 2010, a Thursday night in a nationally televised game against the Kansas State Wildcats. There, Martinez torched his opponent to the tune of 241 yards rushing, another 128 yards through the air on just seven attempts and five total touchdowns.
Martinez finished his freshman campaign with 2,596 total yards and 22 total touchdowns. Over his first three seasons in Lincoln, the hotshot quarterback for Bo Pelini continued to toast opposing defenses. He led the Cornhuskers to three bowl appearances and compiled a 31-14 record as a starter.
| Taylor Martinez Career Stats Through 2012 | ||||
| Year | Pass Yards | Comp % | Rush Yards | Total TDs |
| 2010 | 2,871 | 62.0 | 1,019 | 33 |
| 2011 | 2,089 | 56.3 | 874 | 22 |
| 2012 | 1,631 | 59.2 | 965 | 22 |
| Nebraska official website | ||||