How Marcus Satterfield Attacks The Field

Nebraska's new offensive coordinator seems all about that run-the-ball life. Do the numbers add up?

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Marcus Satterfield had been an offensive coordinator or a key member of an offensive game planning group for six seasons at the FBS level when he was hired Dec. 1 to lead Nebraska’s attack. Over those six years — from 2013-15 as coordinator at Temple, in 2019 as a position coach at Baylor, and the past two seasons as coordinator at South Carolina — the offenses he has piloted or helped to plan have, respectively, finished 71st, 124th, 84th, 28th, 49th and 56th nationally in SP+ offensive rating, the best holistic measure we have for the combined efficiency, consistency and explosiveness of an offense. 

By the numbers, this wasn’t one of new coach Matt Rhule’s most inspiring moves. But, numbers can lie. And Rhule — the head coach Satterfield worked under at Temple and Baylor — has demonstrated in past stops he will prioritize a certain type of culture and a certain style of football over methods of playing that generate impressive numbers or stats.

That’s certainly seemed to be the case this offseason. From December onward, Rhule and Satterfield have embarked on a messaging campaign that’s seemed intended to be borderline pornographic for old-school, ground-and-pound ’90s Husker fans:  “I’ll put my dog out there to play quarterback if he takes care of the ball and helps us win games.” … “With every ground-and-pound [play] is a play action shot of 70 yards.” … “As many [tight ends] as we can get out there at once is awesome for me.” The charm offensive continued in May’s spring game, where the first play was a fullback belly trap out of the I formation.

But offseason quotes and narratives can be misleading; everyone wants to be “multiple” and “positionless” in their introductory press conference. Things change when the action starts. So to get an actual sense of what Satterfield actually likes to run and values in an offense — and to see if there are reasons for optimism beyond what the advanced stats have said about the offenses he’s helmed or helped plan so far — I charted three games from each of his stops, looking at his offenses’ tendencies. The sample size was around 200 snaps for each. As a comparison to help provide a better sense of what the numbers mean, I’ve also compared them to the same data from the Huskers’ last two offensive seasons, 2021 helmed entirely by fired coach Scott Frost, and 2022 a combined effort of Frost and pass-happy NFL mercenary Mark Whipple.

The goal was to find out how Satterfield likes to line up, whom he likes line up with, what his offenses look like before the snap, and what type of plays they’re running after it. I’ve broken down everything into some more specific categories:

Personnel

One immediately obvious difference is the variety of personnel groupings Satterfield wants to get to. Nebraska’s two previous offensive leaders each had just two player groupings exceed 5% season-long usage: Frost used 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, and three receivers) on over 75% of Nebraska’s snaps and 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends, and two receivers) more-or-less on the rest. Whipple’s data looks a little closer toward balance, until you consider his 12 personnel and 21 personnel (two running backs, one tight end, and two receivers) packages were comprised of the same players: tight ends Travis Vokolek and Nate Boerkircher (or Chancellor Brewington) were on the field for both groupings, with Boerkircher/Brewington moving to the backfield to serve as the “second” back. So, essentially, any defensive coordinator playing Nebraska over the last five seasons could expect to face one of two groups of players on nearly every snap.

Satterfield’s offenses have shown much more multiplicity. While 11 personnel was still his most utilized grouping at both Temple, Baylor, and South Carolina¹, he also showed a willingness to use 10 personnel (one back, zero tight ends, and four receivers) at a much higher rate than average at all three stops, and at Temple he utilized multi-back sets for almost a quarter of his plays. At S.C., he played with three tight ends on the field on close to 8% of his snaps, more than five times Frost’s usage and double Whipple’s usage. Overall, five personnel groupings of his offenses at Temple exceeded 5% usage, and four did at South Carolina. That’s going to give coordinators a lot more to think about in game-planning. The numbers at Baylor overall are more spread-happy and consolidated, a likely consequence of them adapting to keep up to the nature of the up-tempo, Air Raid-heavy late 2010s Big 12. Many of the Baylor numbers in this post come off as outliers for that reason

Substituting more often or less often isn’t necessarily a better or worse style of offense: It’s largely a function of tempo. Frost and Whipple typically operated without huddling, meaning they weren’t able to substitute to these more designer personnel groupings. They were relying on more versatile, positionless players who could be effective in both the run and pass games so that they didn’t have to huddle snap-to-snap, preventing the defense from subbing itself and communicating, hopefully leading to mistakes and confusion for big plays. That up-tempo, low-substitutions styles cause headaches for coordinators in its own right. This is just simply to say Satterfield is probably not going to play the way NU has the past several years.

Alignment

The biggest takeaway here, perhaps surprisingly, is the use of shotgun. After an offseason spent touting fullbacks and a spring game spent getting into the I formation, it turns out Nebraska’s new coordinator used shotgun alignments last year at a rate higher than Scott Frost’s.

I think that was probably a function of his starting quarterback, Spencer Rattler, who at 6’1 probably prefers being further back to see over his linemen and seems to excel at spread-out, full-vision passing concepts. But still, Satterfield’s offenses have all overwhelmingly functioned out of the shotgun, which would contradict some of the offseason narratives and support the notion the I formation stuff is going to be a situational package, not the offense’s main plan. Also notable is that he’s largely eschewed pistol alignments, aside from a handful of snaps at Baylor, preferring to just get under center.

He also showed a strong propensity for trips alignments (three eligible receivers to one side of the formation, one to the other) more than doubles alignments (two eligible receivers to each side of the formation) and a complete disregard for quads alignments (four eligible receivers to one side, none to the other). While the South Carolina alignment data is pretty close to averaging out, his rate of using trips at Temple was almost 20 percentage points higher than either Frost’s or Whipple’s, and Satterfield’s Baylor teams also used a higher rate of trips than either.

What does that mean? Trips is useful in forcing the defense to declare a strength, allowing the offense to attack a strong-side and a weak-side. It’s also generally considered to be easier to get receivers open through scheme to the three-receiver side and allows you to typically isolate the backside receiver in initial one-on-one coverage. Doubles passing concepts generally are better for matchup-based concepts that allow the quarterback to survey the whole field and pick who “wins” their route against the coverage. It would make sense then that his trips rate was much higher at Temple, a program that had limited receiver talent, and closer to even at Baylor and South Carolina, where he did have some guys on the outside. I think we can also use it to make the case to say the passing concepts he prefers are going to be ones that prioritize stressing the defense with layered play design over balanced, “pick who wins one-one-one” out of doubles looks.

One other notable thing is the I formation data. He utilized it frequently at Temple — almost a quarter of the Owls’ plays — but was more-or-less a short-yardage package at Baylor and S.C. From preseason quotes, it does sound as if it’s going to play a bigger role than that at Nebraska. But even if it is, these numbers would suggest it’s going to be something closer to something NU utilizes for 10 plays a game than something it will line up in a majority of the time.

The other formational data here is difficult to draw any conclusions from. He doesn’t seem to view unbalanced looks (both on-the-ball receivers to the same side of the formation, often generating compromising adjustments from defenses to fit gaps) as useful, and he didn’t utilize empty alignments (all five eligible receivers split out and the quarterback alone in the backfield) at Temple or Baylor but then adopted them at about average rates at S.C. Satterfield also used receiver stacks and bunches (wideouts lined up behind each other or in groups to prevent press coverage and create rubs) and condensed receiver alignments at probably about average rates for a 2023 offense. Again, some of the Baylor numbers seem like outliers, as most of their formations were just extremely basic spread-out, detached 3x1 and 2x2 looks, so I’m essentially not reading into those at all. That was Big 12 summer camp.

Pre-Snap Operation

Here’s another massive shift that’s evident from the data: This man does not want to move quickly. Over the course of all the games of Temple and South Carolina I watched, the only time I saw them not huddle was a Temple game against Notre Dame late in the fourth quarter during a comeback attempt. Baylor also used some tempo at times, but I’m again chalking that up to their program needing to do some things to survive in the Big 12. Otherwise, Satterfield’s offenses huddled on every snap I watched. Frost and Whipple were around 30% and 20%, respectively, on plays where they didn’t using tempo.

There are some advantages to huddling: It allows you to get in more bespoke personnels (like we’ve already discussed); the break and stoppage between plays allows you to communicate more information to your players, helping with your offense’s organization and detail before each snap; and not having to quickly relay a play in using signs or hand signals (as you’re forced to when you run no-huddle) allows you to have more-designery looks week-to-week to attack specific things you see in a defense. It’s hard to convey a specific, complex variation of one of your standard passing concepts that you installed that week just to attack that opponent’s version of Cover 3 from the sideline using a hand signal; it’s much easier when you can just get everyone together in a circle and tell them what you’re doing. Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan, leaders of two of the best offenses in the NFL, huddle on almost every snap, largely for this reason, as they are often relaying in detailed calls to take advantage of specific situations.

But both coaches will also utilize faster tempos when it’s advantageous, exploiting a favorable personnel grouping without allowing the defense to substitute or hammering a concept in quick succession before the coaches have time or opportunity to convey an adjustment.

While I think Nebraska operating at breakneck tempo under the last regime ultimately hurt the offense more than it helped — especially in a conference that can often be more about attention-to-detail and limiting mistakes — being able to use tempo when it’s a benefit is something all the best college and NFL offenses do. Tempo can and should be used as a weapon by a good offense. Satterfield having this level of dedication to huddling feels like a regressive form of operation in 2023.

The other mildly concerning thing here is motion. “Good offenses use motion” is a bit of a played-out mantra at this point — it’s more if you’re using motion in beneficial ways to shift gaps before a run play or generate a coverage tell before a passing play — but Satterfield’s overall use of motion at Temple and Baylor is comparatively pretty low to 2020s standards.² The NFL average motion use last season on run plays was about 50% and higher for passes — Satterfield would have ranked bottom five in the league last year, a sign he maybe didn’t fully utilize motion’s effectiveness.

General Play Distribution

Here’s another quote from Satterfield during his introductory press conference:

“We’re gonna use tight ends and we’re gonna use a fullback, and we’re going to run the football,” he said. “We understand to be successful in the Big Ten, you’ve got to be able to run the football.”

I think this sentiment got interpreted by Husker media and fans into, “We’re going to pound the rock.” After watching his offenses and considering what he’s saying more closely, I think we should be viewing that quote as, “We need to be able to pound the rock.”

Being able to run the ball effectively and controlling the clock seems obviously important to Satterfield, from his formational and personnel tendencies to his stanning of the concept of huddle in 2023. But I don’t think it’s his ultimate endgame. He’s never actually purely run the ball that much — 34% of snaps at Temple, 27% at Baylor, and 30% at S.C. And all of his offenses have passed at a high rate; each has a higher usage of true dropback passes than ***NFL guru Mark Whipple*** did at NU last year. Even if you were to consider RPOs to be default running plays and combine them with his pure run concepts, his pass-to-run ratio was 52-48 at Temple, 57-43 at Baylor, and 56-44 at S.C.

Where the running game actually seems most useful to Satterfield is getting defenses into stacked-box looks or single-high-safety setups so that he can throw down the field into advantageous coverage for chunk plays. I think the last clause of that second sentence — “… you’ve got to be able to run the football” — is one of the most important things we’re heard about the offense this offseason; for Satterfield, it’s not about running the ball just for the sake of running the ball, it’s about being able to run the ball effectively to punish defenses when they line up in light looks, which causes adjustments that set up your actual best plays. The one counter to this is his rate of passing on first downs — a general measure of how aggressive an offense is — is very low.³ But I think, overall, with his rate of pure dropback passing as high as it is, I don’t think the actual evidence lines up with this being quite the Neanderthal style of ball as has been insinuated. I think we’re going to see an offense that is maybe 55-45 pass-to-run (admittedly still very run-heavy by 2023 standards), as opposed to the common sentiment among media and fans it would be the other way around.

Run-Game Concepts

This is a pretty fragmented data set, but there are some things I think we can pull out here.

One, Satterfield is probably going to employ a less-diverse run game than NU has run in recent years under Frost. In 2021, Frost employed 11 run concepts at over 5% usage; Satterfield employed four concepts at over 5% usage at Temple, four at Baylor, and seven at South Carolina. That was more in line with Whipple’s offense (five concepts at over 5% usage).

This is not necessarily a bad thing; at certain points in Frost’s tenure it felt as if they were trying to run so much stuff that they never spent enough practice time to get good at any of them. I think there’s an argument to be made that really mastering five-to-seven concepts is a better plan than Frost’s, which often felt spread too thin.

Second, based on the South Carolina numbers and some of the rhetoric about the I formation and power running, I think we’re going to see a heavy usage of gap-based concepts. NU was primarily a zone running team under Frost (70-30 zone to gap in 2021) and also favored zone running under Whipple (55-45).

Zone runs work on the idea that the line moves in concert laterally and is responsible for blocking certain areas, rather than certain players, and the ball-carrier will sort out the free-flowing action and find whatever hole opens in the front play-side or what cutback lane opens back-side if there is over-pursuit. Here’s an example of what that looks like from 2021. Watch how the line moves one direction in concert:

Gap-based plays are more structured, with linemen blocking immediately down on certain, set players determined before the snap and often feature pulling linemen. Here’s an example of a gap play, an “iso” concept, from the spring game. Notice how the linemen are firing straight ahead off the ball — no one is waiting around for a defender to enter their zone — and the back is attacking downhill to a set spot:

Every team runs both types of concepts, but Satterfield was primarily zone-based at Temple and Baylor (70-30 and 55-45, respectively). The Owls seemed pretty determined to stick with zone running on principle, while the Bears, primarily doing the Big 12 spread-formation stuff, were likely pushed into zone because it’s harder to run gap-scheme concepts out of the shotgun without tight ends, which they weren’t using

But in 2023 Satterfield leaned heavily into gap scheme, at a rate of 63-37. His most utilized run concept, at nearly a quarter of his overall usage, was counter, a foundational gap-scheme play that features two blockers — usually either a guard and a tackle (called GT counter) or a guard and an H back/tight end/fullback (GF counter) pulling across the formation. Watch the backside guard and offset tight end on these reps from the spring game (the quarterback pulls the ball on an RPO in the first rep; the second is a QB-run RPO variation where the QB throws a screen based on the box count):

Many of the clips from spring and fall practice have shown NU running drills to practice counter. It seems as if it will be there main concept. Other gap scheme plays Satterfield favored last year include “duo” (10%), an inside running play that features two double teams of the interior of the defensive line, “pin-and-pull” (7.4%), an outside-the-tackle hitting concept that features some down blocks inside with other linemen pulling to the outside of the formation, and “inverted veer” (12%), a QB read run play that features a lineman pulling to the strong-side like a “power” concept, a play design you may remember Taylor Martinez using to eviscerate several defenses in the first half of 2010 (the play at the 1:30 mark is teaching tape for inverted veer).⁴

We’ve seen gap scheme runs out of spread looks embraced in college and the NFL in recent years as a popular answer to the lighter boxes that have come with the increasing use of two-safety defenses and nickel personnel (five defensive backs on the field, as opposed to the standard four). Gap-scheme plays are more downhill and aggressive than zone plays, meant to lock onto defenders and push them downfield with strength and physicality, with pullers able to overload and change the numbers on certain sides. This increased physicality is a natural counter to defenses that are getting fewer and lighter in the box as they prioritize the pass. In the NFL, both Kansas City and the Bengals both made sea-change shifts away from zone running last season to prioritize gap-scheme concepts for this reason. From the South Carolina data and NU spring game, it seems as if Satterfield is keyed into using that.

Run-Game Data

“Reads on runs” are any running plays where the quarterback is evaluating the actions of a certain player or the structure of the defense with the option to either keep the ball on a run themselves (a read option) or throw a pass (a run-pass option, or RPO). At all three stops, Satterfield had a quarterback with some athleticism and ability to run the ball, and he’s shown a willingness to utilize that in his offense, even during all the I formation stuff he was doing at Temple. Reading out run plays is an easy way to de-facto remove one defender from the box or attempt to neutralize an exceptional defender.

“Tags” on run concepts are when the offense attaches a quick route to the outside of a formation — typically a bubble route or quick screen to a receiver — on a run play as an easy answer if a defense stacks the box. If the defense is aligned with a light or standard box, the run play proceeds as normal. If an overhang defender slides in or a safety comes down, the quarterback has the option to avoid the stacked box in the middle of the field and throw the ball out to the tag, where the offense now has numbers.

Frost and Whipple both “tagged” run plays a lot (think Wan’Dale Robinson or Trey Palmer catching a little bubble route out of the slot while the line is run blocking), but I didn’t track them specifically and just considered them RPOs.⁵ Satterfield did these more at Baylor and South Carolina than Temple (it’s easier to do them out of the shotgun because the quarterback doesn’t have to take a drop), but he’s had them in his bag at all three stops. While some people consider “tags” as RPOs, they are really just a mechanism to control or adjust box counts and a different idea than “true” RPOs, which are meant to push the ball further downfield and read players after the snap, like this from the spring game:

The data shows Satterfield greatly prefers the “tag” versions of the RPOs, but we saw a lot of downfield RPOs in the spring game, so I think it’s going to be a bigger part of the offense than this research would suggest.

I saw maybe three snaps of true three-read triple option concepts in the run game or on RPOs in any of the games I watched, but he also ran an orbit triple option in the spring game. So maybe this will be part of the attack?

I’m not complaining.

Pass-Game Data

Two pieces of data here present a picture of what I think Nebraska’s passing game may look like.

First, Nebraska did not run quick-game concepts — fast-hitting, one-read short passes with the quarterback not taking a drop — often under Frost (Adrian Martinez was bad at executing them and Frost preferred to use RPOs or the QB run game as his adjuster) or under Whipple (prioritized working concepts at the intermediate level of the field), but it looks poised to under Satterfield. Even in the I formation-heavy offense at Temple, Satterfield used these heavily as an answer to defenses playing man-coverage against receivers or in deeper zone coverage. Quick game is “dink-and-dunk” football, requiring less post-snap evaluation from quarterbacks and easier throws and are great for keeping offenses on schedule. But it also comes with a ceiling: If your routes are shorter, your gains are probably going to be, too.

Second, Satterfield utilized high rates of “heavy” pass protections — seven or eight blockers — at all his stops. More people blocking means more time to throw, and more time to throw means being able to attack further down the field. It was especially notable last year at S.C., where Satterfield kept seven or eight in protection — meaning just three or two players out running pass routes, respectively — on nearly a third of the Gamecocks’ pure passing plays. Pass protection data is hard to track down, but for context, the 2020 Los Angeles Rams led the NFL in these max protect plays … at 20% usage. No other team has been higher than 16%. Satterfield equalled those top rates at Temple and nearly doubled them last year at South Carolina. Here’s one example of a seven-man protection off a play action zone blocking concept from the spring game:

This creates a picture of a passing game that wants to do two things at high rates: quick, short strikes to punish defenses for condensed looks or blitzes, and deep vertical shots downfield to generate chunk gains. All offenses try to heavily attack the intermediate area of the field — Satterfield still used three-step concepts on around 50% of his overall passing plays — but this is going to be a lot more of a “singles and homers”-style passing game than we saw under the previous staff.

A lot of these deep concepts came off play action, often with the line doing a hard run fake with backs or tight ends locking down the edges. I tried to look at the type of line fake — whether the linemen were selling a zone-scheme play or a gap-scheme play — and if it coordinated with Satterfield’s running game. If you’re primarily a zone running team but your play action protection more heavily uses a puller to simulate gap scheme, the defense isn’t going to be fooled. While it did lineup at S.C. — pullers on 40% of its play-action protections and zone on 26%, to go along with a 60/40 gap-to-zone rate — it was pretty out of whack at Temple and Baylor.

The last thing of note here is that Satterfield also appears to utilize screen passes (on pure passing concepts, not as parts of RPOs) at a higher rate than the previous NU staffs. His rates were slightly higher than Frost but several iterations higher than Whipple.⁶ Nebraska hasn’t had a good screen game since Bill Callahan, so that would be a welcome addition.

Passing Concepts

This is a jumble of numbers, and the games I watched would have a large effect on the types of concepts being run — if I just hit a run of Cover 3 heavy teams, the data might be skewed — but there was some crossover school-to-school on concepts that were being run a lot.

It paints a picture of a fairly generic passing game, with a lot of Day One-install concepts doing most of the work. His most

Many of his most utilized concepts were basic static and short timing passes that every offense runs (graphics courtesy Millennial Football):

Slant Flats

Stick

Double Slants

When he wanted to go further downfield, at every stop his teams ran variations of layered flood and Y-cross concepts across the field:

and a concept known as Hoss, a downfield stretch play that attempts to overstretch the coverage both horizontally and vertically:

He also showed a propensity to use “yankee” or deep crossing concepts to attack single-high safety shells:

This play should be familiar to Husker fans; it was a staple of NU’s passing attack in 2021 when Frost went to the more triple-option based scheme:

Conclusions

This was a lot of information to throw at the wall, but in some attempt to synthesize the data, here were my biggest takeaways:

• More spread formations than the pre-season rhetoric would let on, but with heavier and more diverse personnel on standard downs;

• A tendency toward physical, downhill gap-scheme runs over zone;

• Moderate-to-high usage of reads and RPOs in the run game;

• High use of quick concepts and screens to stay on schedule and regulate defensive blitzing;

• Combined with high use of downfield shots in heavy protection; and

• A limited and basic dropback passing menu that will put NU in trouble if it gets into pass-heavy situations.

These things taken together support some of the preseason bully-ball and clock-control narratives, while also presenting a picture of something more modern. What I see from this data — and some of what we saw in the spring game — is a primarily shotgun-based power-spread offense that wants to widen defenses out horizontally and read players to create advantageous boxes for running power-based concepts with bigger personnel grouping, that then hits defenses with RPOs or heavy-protection deep passes when the defense adjusts — but will also struggle to find scheme answers when forced to dropback pass. It’s likely we’ll also see some packages out of the I and under center, but just that: packages. I’m imagining something akin — though not nearly as effective — to what Michigan ran last year, or even the Eagles last couple of years with Jalen Hurts. A physical scheme that can punish some of these lighter nickel-based defenses while also taking advantage of the benefits and easy answers the modern spread systems provide.

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Thanks, as always, for reading. We’re officially under one week until Thursday’s opener, and I’ve got a preview of the game planned for release later in the week, so be on the lookout. If you missed it, check the post detailing the general content plan for this season, plus info on the move to paid subscriptions and how you can ensure you get all of the newsletter’s content. Also, if you know anyone who isn’t reading and might be interested, I’d love if you shared it with them before we get the season started so nobody misses anything.

I’ve opened up the post for any questions and comments! GBR.

1. In modern football, virtually every offense majors in 11 personnel. In the NFL last season, only three teams didn’t use 11 as their most common personnel.

2. The NFL average overall motion rate last season was around 50%, with the top team (the Dolphins) being over 75%.

3. A 45.7% early-down pass rate would have ranked third-to-last in the NFL last season.

4. The South Carolina numbers on inverted veer are pretty skewed from one game against Tennessee when S.C. ran the play out of the Wildcat 11 times against the Vols and a wide overhang set-up they were employing. Had I done a season-long sample size, I don’t think it would have comprised nearly 12% of Satterfield’s run game, but it does seem to be something he likes to employ and would probably be pretty effective with Jeff Sims.

5. I’m probably going to stop doing this going forward.

6. The South Carolina screen data is a little misleading; in one game against blitz-heavy Clemson, S.C. turned to just throwing tunnel screens once per drive in the second half. Over a full season sample size it would probably be a little more reasonable — though still high.