Nebraska football: Matt Rhule coaching staff tracker
Over the coming days, new Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule will be building his coaching staff.
Here is a running table of the confirmed hires Rhule has made on his coaching staff at NU thus far.
Confirmed Matt Rhule coaching staff hires
| Offensive staff hires | Coach | Previous job/Notes |
| Offensive coordinator Tight ends | Marcus Satterfield | Marcus Satterfield will lead the Nebraska offense after serving for the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator at South Carolina. He brings 24 years of experience to the Nebraska staff, including six seasons working for Rhule at Temple, Baylor, and the Carolina Panthers. Satterfield has 11 years of experience as an offensive coordinator in addition to two seasons as the head coach at Tennessee Tech. In his most recent stop at South Carolina, Satterfield served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and helped the Gamecocks to a pair of bowl games. He closed his tenure in Columbia by helping South Carolina to back-to-back wins over top-10 opponents Tennessee and Clemson. The Gamecocks combined for 94 points and 1,008 yards of total offense in the two wins. |
| Quarterback | ||
| Running backs | E.J. Barthel | E.J. Barthel has a background in coaching running backs, most recently on Jim Mora Jr.’s Connecticut staff in 2022. Barthel helped one of the nation’s most improved teams in his one season at UConn as the Huskies averaged nearly 200 rushing yards per game. An accomplished recruiter with strong East Coast connections, Barthel has previous experience on Rhule’s staffs with the Carolina Panthers and at Temple. Barthel assisted with the running backs in Carolina, while also working in the player personnel department. At Temple in 2016, Barthel worked as the director of player personnel on Rhule’s staff. Barthel also helped attract a top-six recruiting class during his one season in a recruiting role at Penn State in 2017. |
| Offensive line | Donovan Raiola | Raiola is a key part of a Nebraska staff that boasts extensive NFL experience. He owns 12 overall years of coaching experience, including four years as an offensive line coach in the National Football League with the Chicago Bears. Raiola has also coached offensive linemen at Aurora (Ill.) University, in addition to collegiate coaching stops at Notre Dame and Hawaii. |
| Wide receiver | ||
| Defensive staff hires | Coach | Previous job |
| Defensive coordinator | Tony White | White led Syracuse to back-to-back top-30 total defensive efforts in 2021 and 2022, marking the school’s best defensive efforts in a decade. The Orange allowed 330.2 yards per game in 2021 to rank 19th nationally and second in the ACC. This season, the Syracuse defense ranked 29th nationally allowing 338.1 yards per game, helping Syracuse to a trip to the Pinstripe Bowl. |
| Defensive line | Terrance Knighton | Terrance Knighton will be in his third season on Rhule’s staff in 2023, after serving as an assistant defensive line coach with the Carolina Panthers in 2021 and 2022. A standout player in the NFL, Knighton has four total years of coaching experience, including two years at Wagner in 2019 and 2020. Knighton was a standout defensive lineman at Temple and was a third-round NFL Draft pick, playing in more than 100 games during his seven-year professional career and tallying 231 tackles from 2009 to 2015. His recent playing experience provides Knighton the expertise to teach and develop at one of the sport’s most demanding positions. |
| Linebacker | Rob Dvoracek | Carolina defensive assistant. Played for Rhule at Temple. Not officially announced yet by Nebraska. |
| Secondary | Evan Cooper | Evan Cooper played at Temple when Matt Rhule was an assistant coach, and Cooper has served on Rhule’s coaching staff for the past decade. In addition to his role as an assistant coach, Cooper served as the Carolina Panthers’ director of player evaluation for three seasons, and he was previously the director of player personnel at Baylor and Temple and an assistant director of player personnel at Miami. Cooper served as Baylor’s recruiting coordinator in 2019 and in his three seasons in Waco, Cooper played a large role in the Bears securing three consecutive top-35 recruiting classes. Baylor’s 2018 signing class was re-ranked as the No. 14 class in the nation by The Athletic in 2022, when it did a re-ranking of the 2018 signing class based on how the recruits performed in their collegiate careers. In 2019, Cooper’s defensive backfield at Baylor helped the Bears rank fifth nationally in interceptions and 18th in pass efficiency defense. |
| Special teams coordinator | Ed Foley | Ed Foley has more than three decades of coaching experience and brings a diverse and robust resume to Nebraska. Foley has served on Matt Rhule’s staff for eight of Rhule’s 10 seasons as a head coach, including each of the last four seasons. Foley is an accomplished special teams coach and has strong recruiting ties to the Northeast including New Jersey, which has produced some of the greatest players in Nebraska history. In Foley’s time at Temple, more than 20 Owls who played high school football in New Jersey went on to NFL careers. Foley spent the past three seasons as an assistant special teams coach with the Panthers and previously worked with special teams at the collegiate level for seven consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2019. His special teams ranked in the top 25 nationally four times in his last five seasons at the collegiate level. |
| Other hires | Coach | Previous job |
| Strength coach | Corey Campbell | Corey Campbell will lead Nebraska’s football strength and conditioning program. Campbell comes to Lincoln after serving for two seasons as an assistant strength coach with the Carolina Panthers. Campbell first worked with Rhule at Baylor where he served as an assistant strength coach beginning in 2017. Campbell was elevated to the role of director of athletic performance at Baylor before he moved on to the Panthers. Campbell also held full-time positions at Purdue and Cincinnati. A Georgia graduate, Campbell was a two-year letterwinner and special teams standout for the Bulldogs from 2010 to 2013. |
| Personnel/Scouting | Omar Hales | Eastern University special teams coordinator, former director of scouting and defensive quality control assistant at Baylor. |
| Personnel/Scouting | Adam DiMichele | Temple offensive assistant (2018-2022) and Temple Director of player development (2015-2017). He’s been at Temple since 2013 and played there as a QB from 2006-2008. |
Coaching staff hire stories
Report: Ex-Husker Jake Peetz could be in line to join Matt Rhule’s coaching staff as QB coach
Report: UConn’s E.J. Barthel will be Matt Rhule’s running back coach at Nebraska
Nebraska adds Terrance Knighton to staff as defensive line coach
Report: Ed Foley to join Nebraska coaching staff
Long-time Rhule assistant Evan Cooper expected to join him at Nebraska
Report: South Carolina offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield joining Matt Rhule at Nebraska
Two Carolina Panthers staff members joining Matt Rhule at Nebraska
Names to watch as potential candidates for Matt Rhule’s coaching staff at Nebraska
