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Nebraska QBs coach Thomas hopes to teach decision-making


It’s been a whirlwind of a month for Nebraska assistant Glenn Thomas.

When Thomas arrived in Lincoln on Friday, Jan. 19, he’d just coached in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills four days prior. There was hardly time for formalities and introductions, either; Thomas’ first day on the job coincided with a junior day recruiting weekend.

“We walked in (to Pinnacle Bank Arena) with all the juniors and some guys were like, ‘Hey, welcome coach, it’s good to have you,’ so that was pretty cool,” Thomas said Monday in his first media appearance since his hiring as Nebraska’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator.

Just over three weeks later, Thomas is still learning more about the quarterbacks he’ll be tasked with coaching in 2024 and about the improvements needed throughout the Nebraska offense. What Thomas doesn’t need to learn, though, are the tactics required to elevate a young quarterback’s play.

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Having coached at the Division II level alongside several stints in the NFL and FBS college football, Thomas’ approach doesn’t change depending on the level he’s working at. The process of growth involves meeting the quarterbacks at their current skill level before gradually raising their overall ceiling, Thomas said.

While the approach might not change, his instructions certainly do.

When working with NFL quarterbacks, coaches dive into far more minute details than they would with a younger player. The right in-game decision for a quarterback can depend on game situations, defensive coverages, personnel and many other factors  so every week brings its own discussions and challenges.

“There’s a lot of gray involved,” Thomas said of coaching professional quarterbacks.

But with collegiate quarterbacks, any gray areas can spell trouble. Due to the complexity of the position when it comes to reading defenses, Thomas said young players need more “finite” coaching input about what the correct throw was or what to do in specific situations.

“If you create uncertainty as far as what the quarterback’s thinking, they’re not going to play fast or play confident,” Thomas said. “The more that you can create black-and-white, finite decisions, the more confident they’re going to play and the better they’ll play.”

From what he’s seen of his scholarship quarterbacks thus far, Thomas is impressed with the leadership they’ve shown during winter conditioning drills. Alongside junior Heinrich Haarberg, freshmen Dylan Raiola and Daniel Kaelin round out the group as a pair of early enrollees.

Though it’s a young quarterback room, their fundamentals are strong. While Thomas said young quarterbacks often have restless feet in the pocket, bouncing around and making premature or ill-advised throws as a result, that’s not the case with Raiola and Kaelin.

“You see poise and composure, calm feet with both those guys and I think that’s a nice foundation to (build) upon,” Thomas said. “Because they’re not getting all excited and restless back there, they can see what’s happening and process it.”

As Nebraska’s quarterbacks coach, it’ll be Thomas’ job to help the Husker signal-callers process the game quickly. It’s also partially his responsibility to create a beneficial offensive framework around them, a task that co-offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield will share in.

The two coaches were on Matt Rhule’s staff together at both Temple and Baylor and have known each other for over 20 years, Thomas said. While at Baylor from 2017-19, Thomas shared offensive coordinator duties with Jeff Nixon  but his duties at Nebraska might be more similar to the 2015 season he spent as Temple’s quarterbacks coach. With Satterfield as the program’s offensive coordinator, Thomas helped transform Temple’s passing game and a 10-win season was the result.

With Satterfield calling the plays and Thomas focusing on the quarterbacks, Rhule is hoping that sharing the coaching duties will allow the entire offense to flourish.

“It worked for us once before, we won a ton of games doing this,” Rhule said of the co-coordinator setup last Wednesday. “…I know that the quarterbacks will be well-coached and I won’t have to spent a lot of time worrying about those things.”

Thomas’ familiarity with the current Nebraska staff played a major role in his decision to leave the Steelers for a collegiate job this winter. Thomas called Rhule a “mentor” for his career and said that he and Satterfield “hit the ground running” this week when they began going over Nebraska’s offensive playbook and personnel groupings.

Thomas also wouldn’t be at Nebraska if he didn’t enjoy teaching the fundamentals of the quarterback position and seeing the growth of an 18-year-old freshman into a 22-year-old senior several years later.

It’ll take hundreds of positional meetings, thousands of practice reps and countless hours breaking down film before Nebraska’s young quarterbacks have completed their process of growth  a journey Thomas already began with them last month.

“When you see that the meeting room translates to the field and all of sudden you hit an explosive (play), that’s pretty cool,” Thomas said. “Hopefully we can create a couple of those moments.”





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