Your head coach is only as good as his assistant coaches, and that is a FACT of football. In a lot of cases (if not all), your assistant coaches are more important to the X’s and O’s side of football, despite the head coach getting all of the shine and attention. I have gotten the privilege to watch most of these guys coach at practice right in front of my face. Today, I wanted to highlight who our offensive assistant coaches are, and their backgrounds. Part Two will be coming later this week, detailing our defensive coaches and Special Teams Coordinator Ed Foley.
We will start this on the offensive side of the ball, with our offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield. Coach Satterfield is from Tennessee and played his college career at wide receiver at East Tennessee State, graduating with his bachelors in 1999. He then started his coaching career as a GA, eventually spending two seasons under Tennessee Volunteer Offensive Coordinator Randy Sanders. After being a receivers coach at two smaller schools, Satterfield joined the University of Tennessee at Martin football staff as the Skyhawks’ the passing game coordinator and running backs coach, eventually being named Associate Head Coach. After a brief stint as the Offensive Coordinator at Tennessee-Chattanooga, newly hired Temple Head Coach Matt Rhule hired Satterfield to be his offensive coordinator. Temple’s offenses under Satterfield were known for it’s great and powerful rushing attacks. Satterfield left Temple to go be the Head Coach at Tennessee Tech. Satterfield then followed Rhule to Baylor, and eventually to the NFL before ending up as the offensive coordinator at South Carolina. In 2022, The Gamecocks scored 30 or more points in 9 games (including the bowl game) for the first time in school history and broke numerous offensive production records in Satterfield’s final season. Satterfield then was announced as the new offensive coordinator under newly hired Nebraska Head Coach.. Matt Rhule. Satterfield is known for a pro-style offense that relies on a physical running game and a passing game that aggressively pushes the ball down the field. Last off-season, when asked about his “positionless offense”, Satterfield said “It’s a position-less offense. You have a quarterback, and you have your o-line, but receivers can play running back, running backs can play receiver, tight ends can play running back or play receiver.” Satterfield will spend the 2024 season as the Offensive Coordinator and Tight Ends Coach, with a future of becoming a head coach again in his coaching future.
Next, we will look at our other offensive assistants. Glenn Thomas graduated from Texas Tech before starting his career as a graduate assistant. Thomas ended up with the Atlanta Falcons as a quarterbacks coach, before going to coach the same position under Rhule and Satterfield at Temple. When Satterfield left Temple, Thomas took over as the offensive coordinator. Thomas followed Rhule to Baylor as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. After bouncing around at some other schools after Baylor, and a brief stint in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rhule hired Thomas to be the Cornhuskers quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator. Thomas is somebody we can expect to be promoted to coordinator should Satterfield ever leave. E.J. Barthel started his coaching career after a brief professional football career, having a few one-year stops as running back coach before being an offensive assistant under Rhule in Carolina. Barthel brings what he calls the Lion Mentality to the Cornhusker running back room. Garret McGuire played football at Baylor for Coach Rhule before becoming an offensive assistant in Carolina. McGuire is the son of Joey McGuire, head coach at Texas Tech. Rhule shocked everybody by hiring McGuire to Nebraska as a Wide Receivers Coach, but so far so good, and I am excited to the jump his room makes in 2024. As someone who is just a year younger than Coach McGuire, I look up to him as a young coach doing big things. Coach Donovan Raiola had a brief stint in the NFL before starting his coaching career. After being an intern and GA, Raiola jumped from Aurora all the way to the Chicago Bears as an offensive assistant before being hired as the offensive line coach in 2022 at Nebraska. Despite terrible offensive line play in 2022, Rhule kept Raiola as the only coach from the previous regime, and if you look at the development of the line in 2023, it was definitely the right move. Some cynical Cornhusker fans say Raiola was only carried over to recruit his nephew, but if you believe that, you do not know much about Rhule, or how important Raiola was to the improvement of the offensive line in 2023.
Overall, I expect a jump this year from our offense this season. Bringing in a great quarterbacks coach in Glenn Thomas was a very smart move for the development of Dylan Raiola. Coach Raiola’s development of the offensive line is such an underlooked piece of this unit, and they are one of the stronger suits on the team now. Ultimately if he turnovers are cut down tremendously, this could be a team good enough to win a good chunk of games, even in the “new” Big Ten.
