Jeremy Pernell: A Much-Needed (and Overdue) Upgrade for Nebraska’s Offensive Line

It’s no secret that the Huskers have had problems in the trenches. The additions of coaches Geep Wade and Lonnie Teasley should help remedy that, both on the field and on the recruiting trail.

Geep Wade (left) and Lonnie Teasley joined the Nebraska football staff earlier this month. | Nebraska Athletics

If you're a regular reader of mine, you know I wasn't in favor of Matt Rhule keeping Donovan Raiola on staff after he took over the Nebraska football program in November 2022. During Raiola's four years in Lincoln, how many kids can you think of that he recruited and developed into prominent players?

Under his tutelage, the Husker O-line lacked consistency, particularly against fellow Power Four opponents. He was an average recruiter who wasn't effective at developing the talent in his room. Nebraska is heading into a second-straight offseason needing to find multiple starters via the transfer portal.

In my Dec. 4 article addressing the dismissal of defensive coordinator John Butler, I wrote about how significant a team's offensive and defensive line coaches are. Outside of your coordinators and strength coach, they're the most important coaches on your staff.

Although Matt Rhule has opined about the importance of being dominant in the trenches on both sides of the ball since arriving at Nebraska, I'd found his approach to filling those coaching positions to be quite dubious. Every line coach he'd hired since being at Nebraska had been first-time position coaches.

Donovan Raiola was fired in early December after four seasons as Nebraska's offensive line coach. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Donovan Raiola had coached high school football for two years before interning at Hawaii (2014) and becoming a graduate assistant at Notre Dame (2015-16). The only time he was in charge of a room was at Division III Aurora University in Illinois — for one season (2017) — before spending 2018-21 as an assistant O-line coach for the Chicago Bears and then getting hired by Scott Frost at Nebraska.

I was also skeptical of Matt Rhule hiring Terry Bradden, whose résumé was also unimpressive: special teams quality control coach at Florida Atlantic (2014), one year at a high school (2015), graduate assistant at Bethune-Cookman (2016) and then eight seasons in various assistant/quality control roles for the Kansas City Chiefs. Another coach who never ran his own room before. That's not how you build a coaching staff in the Big Ten.

Coaches with résumés like Bradden's and Raiola's should never get their coaching breakthroughs at a Big Ten or SEC school. Frankly, they should be getting those at places like Western Kentucky or Central Michigan before getting a look from a Power Four program after they've already established and proven themselves.

Needless to say, I was encouraged when Matt Rhule decided to move on from both Raiola and Bradden. Today, I continue my look at the new coaching additions with an eye on the upgraded O-line room.

Matt Rhule announced Nebraska was parting ways with Donovan Raiola on Dec. 6 and within the hour his intended replacement was already being leaked.

New Nebraska offensive line coach Geep Wade during a practice earlier this month in Lincoln. | Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska's head coach wasted little time identifying his top candidate and moved quickly to get him to Lincoln. On Nov. 28, Geep Wade was on the sidelines as an integral member of Brent Key's coaching staff when Georgia Tech played its regular-season finale against in-state rival Georgia. Wade was hired the following week and was coaching Nebraska's O-line on Monday, Dec. 8, as the Huskers began bowl preparations for Utah.

Wade had been with the Yellow Jackets for the past three seasons, where he established himself as one of the best O-line coaches in the ACC. This past season, Wade’s unit was a Joe Moore Award semifinalist.

As part of a run-first offense in Atlanta, Wade's O-line helped Georgia Tech lead the ACC in rushing his first year there in 2023 (203.8 ypg) and finished second in 2024 (187 ypg) before taking another step this fall.

Wade helped lead Georgia Tech to the No. 12 ranked offense in the country based on average yards per game (466.3 ypg). The Yellow Jackets averaged 33.1 points per game (No. 28 nationally) and ranked 19th nationally and second in the ACC in rushing offense (203 ypg). Their 5.6 yards per carry was good for 12th nationally and first the ACC.

Strong pass protection has also been a staple of Wade’s O-line rooms. Georgia Tech led the ACC in fewest sacks allowed in all three of his seasons in Atlanta. The team gave up just 15 in his first season in 2023 on 379 pass attempts. The O-line allowed just nine in both 2024 (412 pass attempts) and 2025 (354 pass attempts) — which was the fourth-fewest in the country.

Georgia Tech offensive linemen earned all-conference recognition nine times during Wade's tenure, with guard Keylan Rutledge earning back-to-back first-team honors in 2024 and 2025 while becoming the first non-specialist to earn first-team All-America recognition at Georgia Tech since 2016.

Wade got into coaching in 2002 and has worked his way up the ladder. During his climb, he was part of coaching staffs with current Husker assistants Marcus Satterfield and Glenn Thomas.

Nebraska's Justin Evans prepares to snap the ball against Iowa. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Wade was the O-line coach at Division II Midwestern State in 2005 when Thomas was getting his own coaching career started as the team's offensive coordinator. The next season, Wade was the O-line coach and run game coordinator at UT-Martin (2006-08) while Satterfield was the offensive coordinator and associate head coach. Wade took over as offensive coordinator in 2009 when Satterfield left to coach at Chattanooga, before reuniting with Satterfield at Chattanooga from 2010-11 as the Mocs' O-line coach and recruiting coordinator.

Along the way, Geep Wade spent time at Marshall (2012), Middle Tennessee (2013-15), East Carolina (2016-17), back at UT-Martin (2018) and Georgia Southern (2021) before a pivotal year at Appalachian State in 2022.

In his lone season with the school, the Mountaineers’ offensive front was a member of the Joe Moore Award midseason honor roll. Three of the Mountaineers’ five starting offensive linemen earned All-Sun Belt Conference honors that season, including first-team selections Cooper Hodges and Anderson Hardy. It was his work in Boone, North Carolina, that got him hired by Brent Key.

To date, Wade has coached 21 all-conference players, with five of his linemen advancing to the NFL. That number will be at least six after Keylan Rutledge — a mid-round prospect — gets drafted this spring.

Geep Wade emphasized an inside- and outside-zone scheme at Georgia Tech and taught reach progression technique. His O-lines excelled at counter blocking schemes, and Matt Rhule has intimated his intention of making that a more featured piece of the Husker offense moving forward. “The minute Geep got here, he started on counter, started putting in all the different kinds — GT, ZT, OF,” Rhule said during an interview in mid-December.

Lonnie Teasley will serve as the Huskers' run game coordinator while coaching the offensive linemen with Geep Wade. | South Carolina Athletics

Along with adding Geep Wade, Matt Rhule brought in former South Carolina O-line coach Lonnie Teasley to be the run game coordinator and to work side-by-side with Wade — who will run the room.

Like Wade, Teasley has a history with several current Husker assistants after being Matt Rhule's assistant O-line coach at Temple in 2014. Teasley was the O-line coach at Tennessee Tech in 2017 when Marcus Satterfield was the head coach at the FCS program. Teasley was also an offensive analyst at South Carolina (2021-22) while Satterfield was the offensive coordinator there. Teasley was promoted to O-line coach in 2023 after Satterfield left to join Rhule at Nebraska.

Widely regarded as one of the best O-line recruiters in the country, Teasley's paring with Wade — also regarded as a strong recruiter — should pay immediate dividends on the recruiting trail. Not only will you see an immediate uptick in the caliber of player who signs with Nebraska, but don't be surprised to see one or more players from Georgia Tech or South Carolina follow their former coaches to Lincoln when the transfer portal opens Jan. 2.

Lonnie Teasley and Geep Wade have known each other for over 10 years, and the two share the same philosophy for the trenches. Although they had never worked on the same staff together until now, the pair would talk ball in the offseason, which hopefully lends itself to them being a cohesive tandem when it comes to coaching the O-line together.

Both Wade and Teasley jumped right in and helped the team during bowl practices. Current staffers Aaron Coeling and Riley Moses were also on hand for preparations for Utah. It's unknown how the dynamics will work moving forward, or whether or not Coeling and Moses are here in 2026, but heading into Wednesday's Las Vegas Bowl game, Wade and Moses spent the majority of their time working with Nebraska's tackles while Teasley and Coeling handled the interior linemen.

On paper, Nebraska's offensive line room hasn't been in hands this good since the days of Milt Tenopir and Dan Young. The Huskers have one of the best up-and-coming O-line coaches in college football in Geep Wade, and having a former SEC O-line coach — and elite recruiter — in Lonnie Teasley in the room to assist him is a seismic shift from where this program has been for far too long.

---

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.