Pet Plays; Packaged Plays And The Temple Owls

Temple's offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield is taking his step up to the FBS level this season with Temple. This will be the first year at the FBS level, spending most of the last decade in the FCS at Richmond, Western Carolina, Tennessee Martin and Tennessee Chattanooga. He is not a guy who has blown up in coaching circles, his rise hasn't exactly been meteoric, but is an obviously intelligent guy.

Unfortunately, coaching at the FCS doesn't leave me a lot of material to work with for this kind of post. But in the reams of B.J. Coleman cut ups I did see something interesting. This is from the 2010 Auburn game.

Keep an eye on the outside linebacker to the two receiver side. He is the quarterbacks read on this play. The play itself is complicated and yet simple. The offensive line is running power to the right for a run play. The two backside receivers are running a flair screen. This combination is, in and of itself, nothing new. A backside screen with run action to the play side has been a long term feature of this generation of offenses. What's different is when the read is taking place, after the start of the play. When Pat White would run similar plays at West Virginia it was usually pre snap.

Temple got good by pounding the rock and being more physical than their opponents. The pro style sets and personnel aren't going anywhere, but Matt Ruhel hired Marcus Satterfield for a specific reason, to bring more dynamism to a moribund passing attack for the last two year. That's why Connor Riley will be the starter. How Satterfield goes about melding the pass heavy scheme he used with UT-Martin and UT-Chattanooga will be interesting, and I expect there to be plenty of cross over between runs and throws this year. It can be a great way to stretch a defense, particularly if you don't have the personnel to cause the same effect.