Marcus Satterfield shares what traits make Billy Kemp special

One of the many new faces at Nebraska this year is wide receiver Billy Kemp. The former Virginia wide receiver is one of 11 transfer portal additions under new coach Matt Rhule, and through spring practice, it sounds like he’s impressing.

New Nebraska offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield talked about Kemp’s ability to do a little bit of everything. After all, he went from halfback to running back to wide receiver during his five years at Virginia. Despite his size — standing at 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds — he has proven his durability en route to becoming Virginia’s fourth-leading receiver in program history.

Satterfield added there are multiple opportunities to maximize Kemp’s skillset in his first season in Lincoln.

“He’s really, really tough,” Satterfield said. “Knock on wood, very, very tough, durable and he can do many things for you. He is small in stature, but he can play inside, he can play outside. He can go in the backfield and do things out of the backfield at times. He’s shown in his time in Virginia and shown in the short amount of time here that he’s able to do a bunch of different things for this offense.”

In his five years at UVA, Kemp totaled 1,774 yards and eight touchdowns despite a down year in 2022. He totaled just 16 receptions for 116 yards in seven games one year after finishing with 725 yards and six touchdowns.

But Kemp did more than play receiver. He was also Virginia’s punt returner, taking 64 punts back for 369 yards in his career. Considering his knowledge of multiple phases of the game, Satterfield said Kemp can pick things up quickly.

“He loves football,” Satterfield said. “He’s super hyper-competitive and he wants the ball. He caught a lot of balls when he was at Virginia. He’s a very, very smart kid, very, very high football IQ kid. Things are coming pretty natural to him.”

Even when he committed out of the transfer portal, Kemp said he thinks he can contribute in multiple ways. He could find himself doing just that based off Satterfield’s comments.

“I think you will see me do a little bit of everything,” Kemp said after his commitment, via On3 and HuskerOnline’s Sean Callahan. “I can do everything in the return game and anything in the offense they ask me to.

“I took over the punt return job my first year there, and ever since then, whenever I was healthy, it was my job.”