Adrian Martinez is not a new quarterback for Ohio State.

In three games against the Buckeyes, the Nebraska redshirt junior has been the same guy he’s always been: a multi-use athlete, beating defenses with his arm and with his legs.

As Ohio State head coach Ryan Day prepares to see Martinez for the fourth time in his collegiate career, he said it’s almost if the Buckeyes are about to face Army or Navy.

“It’s really like playing one of the service academies, it’s triple option,” Day said. “Assignment football is very, very important and some guys got the full back, some guy’s got the quarterback and some guy’s got the pitch. We worked on that this week.”

In three games against the Buckeyes previously, the ground game has been important to Martinez. The quarterback has averaged five yards per carry, scoring three rushing touchdowns, including two in his first game against Ohio State in 2018.

This is something Day and defensive line coach Larry Johnson have to prepare differently for, keeping an edge on the rush and making sure the defensive line can contain him there, cupping him in the pocket.

“You can’t let him run wild and escape in the pass game,” Day said. “You still have to push the pocket and put pressure on him. But then also in the run game, you have to make sure you are accounting for him and getting him down in space. That changes a little bit how you play your techniques, whether it’s the defensive ends or the safeties coming down to attack for him.”

The passing game has been a bit more difficult for Martinez.

In his first ever performance against the Buckeyes, the freshman completed 22-of-33 passes for 266 yards and a touchdown, bringing Nebraska to within a touchdown of Ohio State at Ohio Stadium.

In his two games against Ohio State since, it’s been a struggle, completing 62.5% of his passes for 152 yards combined with no touchdowns and three interceptions.

As Ohio State prepares to see Martinez for the fourth time in his career, sophomore safety Bryson Shaw said the defense has watched film of the Nebraska quarterback in previous meeting against the Buckeyes, while also realizing that he’s expanded his game since the last time they met.

“He’s just an athletic guy and when you have an athletic guy like that, it just allows you to do a lot with the offense,” Shaw said.

This season, Martinez has been that dual-threat spark for the Cornhuskers.

The redshirt junior has thrown for at least 200 yards in each of his nine games this season, throwing a passing touchdown in all but one start this year: a 23-20 overtime loss to Michigan State.

In the ground game, Martinez has eclipsed 50 yards four times and 100 yards twice against Illinois and Buffalo, scoring at least one touchdown in the run game against every team except Buffalo and Minnesota, which completely took him out of the ground game with five tackles for loss, two sacks and -17 yards rushing with a long of four yards.

However, this success hasn’t translated to wins. Nebraska comes in with a 3-6 record, losing each of its six games this season by a margin of 5.5 points.

In his four seasons with the Cornhuskers so far, Martinez has posted a record of 14-23 in games he’s played in, losing 23 games by an average margin of 11.6 points with 16 of those losses decided by eight points or less, including all six in 2021.

While Martinez has shown his versatility, leading the Nebraska offense to the fourth-best scoring offense in the Big Ten (29.9 points per game) and the second-best total offense in the conference (470.1 yards per game), Day has some versatility of his own.

The head coach points to sophomore safety Craig Young, a player who’s shown the ability to play at the linebacker level and the safety level, while also being able to drop back in coverage.

Any time Ohio State faces a quarterback like Martinez, Day said, the defense has to have a plan. Young, he said, is a part of that plan.

“Any time you have versatility like that, it gives us a lot of options of having athletes on the field against an athletic quarterback is important,” Day said.

For a defense that struggled to get off the field at times against Penn State — allowing the Nittany Lions to convert on 11-of-18 attempts on third down — Shaw is ready for a chance to show what he can do against the Cornhuskers, playing with an urgency, a chippiness against one of the top offenses in the conference.

“I think we should have a chip on our shoulder,” Shaw said. “I think that can only help you, have that little edge on you. We have to play fast, we have to play tough, we have to play smart, we have to play together.”