Should we fire Satterfield??

admo said:
Crazy how we've heard this same BS since 2002  <_<  

Frank Solich 7-7 -he sucks playcalling, get rid of him
Jay Norvell - get rid of him he sucks 
Shawn Watson - get rid of him he sucks playcalling
Tim Beck - get rid of him he sucks playcalling
Danny Langsdorf - get rid of him he sucks
Mike Riley - get rid of him he sucks
Troy Walters - get rid of him he sucks
Matt Lubick - get rid of him he sucks
Scott Frost - he's okay - not his fault - He's local
Mark Whipple - get rid of him he sucks
Marcus Satterfield - get rid of him he sucks playcalling
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Well that's because they are being judged against '90s OC Tom Osborne, 25 years+ experience running his own system with the assistants mostly intact.  The old farts remember though "Why can't they punch it in the end zone, Dale Klein had how many FG?"  "How do you score so few points and lose to that Iowa State team?"  "The sequencing and play calling is bad against OU, Switzer has his number." "That antiquated offense of Tom's isn't good enough against the speed of the Florida teams"   Fans bellyaching about the coordinators is always a part of fall, whether it's at Memorial, or over prime rib and chicken fried steak at The Plainsman.

 
Didn't Satt lose playcalling duties at SC?  I thought that was something I heard.

In the end, the running game blows and without a running QB it just makes it harder to run the ball.  But they are trying to run the ball.

 
-He forced running quarterbacks into being a passing quarterback, Sims and HH. He does not know how to develop talent and coach to skillset.

-Minnesota, marching downfield running the ball, let’s get creative and throw our 3rd INT. Loss.

-Wisconsin loss: 90 seconds to go, run 3 plays inside the 25, settle for a fg and lose the game in OT. Scored 3pts after the 1st quarter. The 2 TDs that game came from busted coverage and 60 yard scramble.

-Maryland loss, defense playing lights out. Interception at the goaline with forced pass plays. Eat the clock , force Maryland to use their TOs, kick the fg.

-Gets demotion over offseason. 
 

They are meeting expectation at a  low level of offensive production. If it weren’t for Tony White, this wouldn’t be a question right now. Flashes of creativity do not make a good OC.

He has relied heavily on an elite QB to bail him out and hasn’t established a run game with a consistent back. 
 

This was a team expected to be 6-0, 7-0 going into OSU that hasn’t played a complete game on offense all season. But sure, cherry pick a few plays or sequences game against crap opponents and rubber stamp your approval while mocking those with objective criticism.

 
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Savage Husker said:
-He forced running quarterbacks into being a passing quarterback, Sims and HH. He does not know how to develop talent and coach to skillset.

-Minnesota, marching downfield running the ball, let’s get creative and throw our 3rd INT. Loss.

-Wisconsin loss: 90 seconds to go, run 3 plays inside the 25, settle for a fg and lose the game in OT. Scored 3pts after the 1st quarter. The 2 TDs that game came from busted coverage and 60 yard scramble.

-Maryland loss, defense playing lights out. Interception at the goaline with forced pass plays. Eat the clock , force Maryland to use their TOs, kick the fg.

-Gets demotion over offseason. 
 

They are meeting expectation at a  low level of offensive production. If it weren’t for Tony White, this wouldn’t be a question right now. Flashes of creativity do not make a good OC.

He has relied heavily on an elite QB to bail him out and hasn’t established a run game with a consistent back. 
 

This was a team expected to be 6-0, 7-0 going into OSU that hasn’t played a complete game on offense all season. But sure, cherry pick a few plays or sequences game against crap opponents and rubber stamp your approval while mocking those with objective criticism.
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image.pngWelcome aboard. 

 
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Savage Husker said:
-He forced running quarterbacks into being a passing quarterback, Sims and HH. He does not know how to develop talent and coach to skillset.

-Minnesota, marching downfield running the ball, let’s get creative and throw our 3rd INT. Loss.

-Wisconsin loss: 90 seconds to go, run 3 plays inside the 25, settle for a fg and lose the game in OT. Scored 3pts after the 1st quarter. The 2 TDs that game came from busted coverage and 60 yard scramble.

-Maryland loss, defense playing lights out. Interception at the goaline with forced pass plays. Eat the clock , force Maryland to use their TOs, kick the fg.

-Gets demotion over offseason. 
 

They are meeting expectation at a  low level of offensive production. If it weren’t for Tony White, this wouldn’t be a question right now. Flashes of creativity do not make a good OC.

He has relied heavily on an elite QB to bail him out and hasn’t established a run game with a consistent back. 
 

This was a team expected to be 6-0, 7-0 going into OSU that hasn’t played a complete game on offense all season. But sure, cherry pick a few plays or sequences game against crap opponents and rubber stamp your approval while mocking those with objective criticism.
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  • Sims had 42 carries to 47 pass attempts, Haarberg 120 carries 157 pass attempts. I am not sure how throwing the 6th fewest passes per game (And that's including the 2 Purdy games where we threw more than our season average) in the country is trying to force running QBs to be throwing QBs. We implemented an entire option game that was nowhere in his playbook prior to Sims coming on board, and rode it, as ugly as it was, to the 2nd most rushing ypg in the conference.
  • QB run for 1 yard, QB run for 10 (on a scramble, called RPO), PASS for 14, Ervin run for 4, pass for INT. There was a minute left and we had one timeout. We had called 2 runs on the drive for 5 total yards, not exactly marching it down the field.
  • So we're mad that he ran the ball (and clock) against Wisconsin, and then mad that he didn't run the ball and clock against Maryland? I understand we were trailing by 3 against Wisconsin were tied against Maryland, so they are different.


    But we got to 1st and 10 from the Wisconsin 12 with 13 seconds, which should have allowed 2 plays into the end zone before settling for the FG. That's where you want to be. Purdy made it one play by drifting way back and lobbing a ball out the back of the end zone which wasted too much time.
  • Maryland, we are running clock the whole way. 1st and goal was a called run that Purdy threw away - if it was even an RPO, only Purdy had the pass option in his head. Nobody ran a route. On 3rd and goal from the 6 with ~4 minutes left, a "safe" pass that has a chance of being a TD is the right call. The QB wasn't Sims or Haarberg who had proven they couldn't be trusted.



I don't think he's an elite coordinator or anything, but I don't think any of those examples are points against his scheme/playcalling. You can definitely argue that Purdy's mistakes against Wisconsin/Maryland still come back to Satterfield's coaching, but I don't know that any coach is such a QB savant that they can impart good decision making on the mostly injured, 3rd string QB with limited experience. If he runs the ball on 3rd and goal against Maryland, say we don't get it and settle for the FG. Maryland still has 3 minutes and timeouts to go down and force OT or win on the final possession. They kicked their FG from our 6 after running clock, reasonably likely they score a TD to win 17-13 and fans yell at Satt for settling for the FG.

 
Savage Husker said:
-Gets demotion over offseason. 
 

They are meeting expectation at a  low level of offensive production. If it weren’t for Tony White, this wouldn’t be a question right now. Flashes of creativity do not make a good OC.

He has relied heavily on an elite QB to bail him out and hasn’t established a run game with a consistent back. 
 

This was a team expected to be 6-0, 7-0 going into OSU that hasn’t played a complete game on offense all season. But sure, cherry pick a few plays or sequences game against crap opponents and rubber stamp your approval while mocking those with objective criticism.
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Dude is getting top ten OC money as a Co-OC https://247sports.com/longformarticle/college-football-rankings-top-10-highest-paid-offensive-coordinators-ahead-of-2024-season-ranked-232625585/amp/

I was listening to the Bo Ruud and Nick Bahe podcast yesterday. 2nd half offense resulted in 5 possessions, 5 punts 55 total yards with 30 coming from the fake punt and 0 points. 
 

I’m glad he had a modestly creative play call/design on 3rd and short. But to pretend like there’s not valid concerns here is disingenuous. 

 
Savage Husker said:
-He forced running quarterbacks into being a passing quarterback, Sims and HH. He does not know how to develop talent and coach to skillset.

-Minnesota, marching downfield running the ball, let’s get creative and throw our 3rd INT. Loss.

-Wisconsin loss: 90 seconds to go, run 3 plays inside the 25, settle for a fg and lose the game in OT. Scored 3pts after the 1st quarter. The 2 TDs that game came from busted coverage and 60 yard scramble.

-Maryland loss, defense playing lights out. Interception at the goaline with forced pass plays. Eat the clock , force Maryland to use their TOs, kick the fg.

-Gets demotion over offseason. 
 

They are meeting expectation at a  low level of offensive production. If it weren’t for Tony White, this wouldn’t be a question right now. Flashes of creativity do not make a good OC.

He has relied heavily on an elite QB to bail him out and hasn’t established a run game with a consistent back. 
 

This was a team expected to be 6-0, 7-0 going into OSU that hasn’t played a complete game on offense all season. But sure, cherry pick a few plays or sequences game against crap opponents and rubber stamp your approval while mocking those with objective criticism.
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I think this really is what people are missing. His real weakness is not really on gameday or scheming against opponents; it is all in the lead-up to it. from all indications, he's good at sticking to the script that has been prepared. he can call plays according to plan and the "process" (which is actually great with Rhule's attention to detail). where he struggles, and where all that great game prep work loses it's value is in the true coordinating - the player development, the coaching, the combination of all the pieces required for a productive, efficient, mistake-free offense. so his play calling looks bad at times not because they are bad playcalls - they're actually decent, to be fair. the play calls look bad because the execution is average to poor in key spots a lot of times (WR blocking, OL missed reads, WR/TE sloppy routes, e.t.c) and that speaks to a lack of attention to detail on his coaching to me.

for example: there's no reason for us getting into the season before we knew that our perimeter blocking was horrendous with such a huge portion of the playbook dependent on it. 

 
Savage Husker said:
-He forced running quarterbacks into being a passing quarterback, Sims and HH.
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This is wrong. Satterfield changed his offense to adapt to using running QBs. He ran the option and some option passes too. It was when the opponents stacked the box and stopped the running game that he was forced to try throwing to win.

I have no care if Satterfield is kept or fired, but let's try to at least be somewhat accurate on the situation.

 
Husker in WI said:
  •  
  • So we're mad that he ran the ball (and clock) against Wisconsin, and then mad that he didn't run the ball and clock against Maryland? I understand we were trailing by 3 against Wisconsin were tied against Maryland, so they are different.
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Thank you for bringing this up. Excellent point. Winners win, losers lose. These accurately reflect the lack of understanding how to win. 

 
RedDenver said:
This is wrong. Satterfield changed his offense to adapt to using running QBs. He ran the option and some option passes too. It was when the opponents stacked the box and stopped the running game that he was forced to try throwing to win.

I have no care if Satterfield is kept or fired, but let's try to at least be somewhat accurate on the situation.
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I can accept your point and I don’t intend to come off hyperbolic. Yes, he did try to implement these plays at times, but when it came down to pulling the strings to win a ball game he melted. 
 

I’ve seen coaches run wildcat nearly all game to win a ball game. Nothing wrong swallowing pride and running 75-80% of the time.

 
Savage Husker said:
I can accept your point and I don’t intend to come off hyperbolic. Yes, he did try to implement these plays at times, but when it came down to pulling the strings to win a ball game he melted.
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Was that really Satterfield melting though? Seemed like the whole team contributed to the meltdowns. Even the defense couldn't get one last stop several times. Satterfield certainly contributed to it as well, but I think there was enough blame to go around. 

Savage Husker said:
I’ve seen coaches run wildcat nearly all game to win a ball game. Nothing wrong swallowing pride and running 75-80% of the time.
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In major college football? Nobody is winning that way in the B1G or SEC. This is just fantasy.

 
Savage Husker said:
Thank you for bringing this up. Excellent point. Winners win, losers lose. These accurately reflect the lack of understanding how to win. 
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I'd still say the majority of our late game meltdowns came down to players making mistakes, not bad calls. I definitely don't like every call he's ever made, but most of the time when rewatching it's clear why he called it and how it should have worked. The players not executing still comes back to the coaches, and they essentially recruited over every skill position and QB we had from last year.

It's still far from a great offense, but it's a lot better and I expect it to continue to improve. It would not bother me in the lsightest if Satterfield left, but I don't see any reason to fire him. And finding an OC in alignment with the HC's game management style is important to Rhule, it's not like we'd go out and try to hire the OC from the top scoring G5 team. 

 
RedDenver said:
This is wrong. Satterfield changed his offense to adapt to using running QBs. He ran the option and some option passes too. It was when the opponents stacked the box and stopped the running game that he was forced to try throwing to win.

I have no care if Satterfield is kept or fired, but let's try to at least be somewhat accurate on the situation.
Click to expand...


I think both Rhule and Satterfield can take some heat for hanging their first season at Nebraska on the shoulders of hand-picked portal transfer Jeff Sims. They did manage to get a tick better when they pivoted to average dual threat QB Heinrich Haarberg, and by the end of the season you started to wonder if marginally better passer Chubba Purdy might have worked better all along. The whole season felt improvised while the coaches waited for defining talent to emerge, and that never happened. I expected one RB to break out of the pack this year, but that hasn't happened. Satterfield's offense still runs more than it passes, even as Raiola is getting 8 yards per attempt to the 4.0 of our running backs.

Still, it's a bit galling to see Brian Buschini completing 100% of his passes with an average of 30 yards per attempt, and Stubborn Satt sticking with Raiola as QB. 

 
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