Sometimes when a first-year offensive coordinator gets in a room in the preseason with other coaches he’s never coached with to install his offense, there can be problems.
At times, some hard-headed coaches might have differing opinions and won't budge.
That’s not how things have gone at Nebraska with Marcus Satterfield, the Huskers’ play-caller and quarterbacks coach. Satterfield joined Sports Nightly on Monday night to talk about the offseason and how his room has developed over the spring and summer.
“It hasn’t been like that for us at all,” Satterfield said of disagreements with coaches and players. “Guys are really buying into how we want to play football. We want to play football a certain way with a physicality and a toughness. How we do it is a little bit different than how a lot of people do it these days. And everybody in our room is excited to be a part of it and push forward and show what we can do here in the coming months.”
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Here are the highlights of Satterfield’s brief interview:
>> Satterfield was happy with the offense’s progress in the spring, except for one thing: all those turnovers and sloppy play in the spring game.
Satterfield wasn’t a fan of that.
“I thought we had done a really nice job until that point,” Satterfield said. “We got out there, which is good because you want to get the guys in stressful situations in front of a large crowd and make sure that the attention to detail and ball security, that they’re able to do that and they don’t lose their minds. I thought that was good for us to get exposed to.”
Satterfield said he didn’t show much in the spring game and thought it was good for quarterback Jeff Sims to play in a game-like setting in a somewhat-filled Memorial Stadium.
>> Speaking of Sims, the heavy favorite to win the starting quarterback job, the Georgia Tech transfer has “really high-level arm talent.” But the coach wanted to be careful saying that out loud because of the expectations that might get placed on the quarterback.
Satterfield remembers watching Sims start as a true freshman for the Yellow Jackets and being impressed.
“I think he’s tough, I think he’s a good leader, a competitor. I think his skillset from an athletics standpoint is off the charts," Satterfield said. "I’m in there (weight room) watching him, I think he power cleaned 245 last week. He’s 6-foot-4, he’s put on good weight. He looks like he could play linebacker right now. I think his ability to understand good football, he’s played a lot of football, he’s been in some good offenses, he’s been coached by some really good guys.
"His ability to function out there from a cerebral standpoint at quarterback is great. His athletic traits are off the charts. His arm talent is really high-level. I think he’s poised to have a breakout year.”
It’s the job of the starting quarterback to organize offseason workouts with his teammates, especially the receivers so they can practice throwing on air and work on their timing and chemistry.
Sims ran the show this offseason, Satterfield said.
“It’s not easy to do, to get 20 to 25 guys on the same page out there, running the routes we need to run, getting the plays called and getting organized. He did a really nice job with that,” Satterfield said. “There were different moments this summer, leadership opportunities that he took advantage of, and I think it’s slowly but surely becoming his offense.”
>> Chubba Purdy had a rocky first go as a Husker last season, completing just 45 percent of his passes while throwing three interceptions against no touchdowns in backup duty when Casey Thompson was injured.
The former transfer from Florida State wasn’t showing Satterfield what he wanted early in spring, either. But the Arizona native kicked it up a notch and finished strong.
“We challenged him late in the spring and said, ‘You need to start producing a little bit more,’ and he responded," Satterfield said. "In today’s world, a lot of people would have responded in how we challenged him with, ‘I’m going in the portal,’ and he said, ‘All right, watch this,’ and the last three or four practices he really kept taking step after step after step. He’s super competitive, super tough, very high football IQ.”
Satterfield said Purdy can absolutely gain a role in the offense if he takes what he ended spring ball with and transitions it to fall camp.
>> A "physical specimen” is how Satterfield described the 6-5, 210-plus-pound Heinrich Haarberg, who went viral in the Husker fan base after throwing down an impressive dunk during spring ball in front of his coaches and teammates.
Haarberg, however, hasn’t found a role in the program yet after two years. He’s hoping to change that with a strong fall camp.
“Like Jeff, he has super athletic traits from the speed and agility, toughness, durability," Satterfield said. "He’s able to hurt you running the football — he can run away from you, he can run through you, he can throw the ball. So I think he has a lot of good football ahead for him. I think he had a good summer, he’s learning how to work. He hadn't got to play a lot of snaps since he’s been here, so I think that was huge for him to get in the spring game.”
Satterfield said it’s good for Haarberg to get those reps in a packed stadium so he has that experience. His confidence keeps growing, Satterfield said.
>> Nebraska has two walk-on quarterbacks in Jack Woche, who was here for spring ball, and Luke Longval, a transfer from Iowa Western Community College who was offered the spot following a strong performance at a June camp.
Satterfield said both walk-on signal callers understand where they’re at in the pecking order, but that’s not stopping them from trying to help the team in any way they can.
“They can help us win at practice, and in the summer they were here every single day throwing seven-on-seven,” Satterfield said. “You need more than three arms in today’s college football, especially in training camp. You need to have great scout team looks and football savvy, high-football IQ kids like those two to allow you to have really good scout teams, which allow you to have really good defenses.”
>> One of the changes the football team will have for fall camp is spending the first couple weeks of it in dorms on campus. It’s not just the players staying at the dorms, the coaches will do it, too.
Consider Satterfield a big fan of that.
“I’m so excited about going back to the dorms. I think that’s awesome. I think Coach (Matt Rhule) talks about it all the time with these online classes — kids were meant to be amongst other young men. That’s how you develop as a young man,” Satterfield said. “And I think going into these environments with coaches as well — we’re not just saying, ‘Hey, y’all go live in the dorm, we’re going home.’ We’re going to be in there with them.
“I think it’s going to make us closer as a staff. I think it’s going to make us closer as a team. I think we’re going to look back at this in months, years from now, and say, ‘Hey, this was a turning point in tipping the culture and tipping Nebraska football in the direction it is now.”
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