Ari Wasserman (The Athletic) forecasts Raiola to Nebraska, says commitment may be soon

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This is from his recruiting mailbag this morning. Ari Wasserman is a senior writer for The Athletic covering college football and recruiting nationally. He previously spent 10 years covering Ohio State for The Athletic and Cleveland.com, starting on the Buckeyes beat in 2009.


This upcoming weekend, Nebraska is hosting what seems to be an excellent list of visitors, the likes of which I have not seen in my 20 years as a Cornhusker fan. Is this what a typical recruiting weekend looks like for the Ohio States, Alabamas and Georgias of the CFB world, or is this a special weekend, regardless of school caliber? — Sam E.

Not to rain on your parade, but I’ve seen official visitors lists that are 10 deep with five-star prospects at Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia. But that isn’t a reason not to get hyped up about what Matt Rhule is doing at Nebraska.

There is a big fish out there, and it seems like Nebraska has a shot at landing him. That big fish? Five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola of Phoenix (Ariz.) Pinnacle, who is planning to take three trips to Nebraska this spring, including this weekend.

When Raiola visited USC on March 4, there was a lot of speculation that the No. 1 overall player would wind up playing for Lincoln Riley. Of course, Riley’s resume with developing quarterbacks is unparalleled in the sport right now, and Los Angeles is much closer to Phoenix than Nebraska. But I’m not sure I’m ready to punt on the idea that Rhule will get this big recruitment done. In fact, I think I’d bet on it. Raiola already visited Nebraska earlier this spring, will return this weekend and is expected to come for the spring game in April. I’ve been covering recruiting for a long time, and sometimes everything you need to know about a prospect’s lean is out there with how much of an effort that player makes to get to campus.

Nebraska has some built-in advantages. Raiola’s uncle is on Nebraska’s staff, and his father played there. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rhule to make a huge recruiting splash right out of the gate.


There is no question that landing a commitment from Raiola could jump-start this entire class. And guess who knows that? Raiola. I would not be shocked to see a commitment soon so he can get to work helping Nebraska sign an elite-level class under the exciting new head coach.

Just because Nebraska’s visitors list isn’t as deep as what we’ve seen at times from Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama doesn’t mean this isn’t an exciting time to be a Nebraska fan.
 
Meh, all speculation, no insider info.
of course, no national guys forecasting have any inside info. The family has played it close to the vest, oftentimes the analysts don't even get to talk to Dylan (like last weekend's Georgia visit, where Dom answered the questions), and all they are given are generic statements of praise about the places they are going. These reveal nothing, because every finalist for a recruit of the stature will have lots to praise.

Wasserman is taking a better approach than the guys trying to read something into these generic statements. He is simply looking at what Dylan is doing.
 
It's interesting, on the one hand I don't think Wasserman knows dick about recruiting. On the other, I wonder why he'd semi go out on a limb like that.

Unfortunately I don't read enough of his stuff to know which one it is. I think it's just a non recruiting guy making an educated guess. I'm definitely less excited about it than you - I just feel that since he knows he's a non recruiting guy that there's no downside to him being wrong.
 
It's interesting, on the one hand I don't think Wasserman knows dick about recruiting. On the other, I wonder why he'd semi go out on a limb like that.

Unfortunately I don't read enough of his stuff to know which one it is. I think it's just a non recruiting guy making an educated guess. I'm definitely less excited about it than you - I just feel that since he knows he's a non recruiting guy that there's no downside to him being wrong.
Most of whatl he covers for The Athletic is recruiting. Hit the link and look at his story credits:

 
Most of whatl he covers for The Athletic is recruiting. Hit the link and look at his story credits:

Yeah, his whole shtick is "stars matter."
 
If the story doesn't include Golden Tee and Gate 25, it's probably not accurate.
In other writers' hands, I'd be worried about the "Nebraska just isn't elite anymore" line being repeated 10x in this story.

With Feldman, I believe he has sources in UNL that actually told him the real story behind Frost and his antics here. So I think Feldman will give us a fair, accurate account of Frost's time here. Though he does tiptoe around the seedy stuff he's heard about Scotty. He's already danced around that on his podcast. I think he knows pretty much everything that went on here, only question is how much he wants to divulge. Probably none of the personal stuff. But hopefully at least the work ethic stuff
 
Most of whatl he covers for The Athletic is recruiting. Hit the link and look at his story credits:

That's interesting! Did not know that.

RE: the mailbag question. If he's a recruiting guru, you'd think he could make a distinction between a regular season game weekend in SEPT with 25 OVs.... vs a random day in March during spring practice getting 20 unofficial visitors (w this star power), etc.

That's kind of an important distinction went right over his head.
 
In other writers' hands, I'd be worried about the "Nebraska just isn't elite anymore" line being repeated 10x in this story.

With Feldman, I believe he has sources in UNL that actually told him the real story behind Frost and his antics here. So I think Feldman will give us a fair, accurate account of Frost's time here. Though he does tiptoe around the seedy stuff he's heard about Scotty. He's already danced around that on his podcast. I think he knows pretty much everything that went on here, only question is how much he wants to divulge. Probably none of the personal stuff. But hopefully at least the work ethic stuff
Feldman is also close to Bill Moos from all his years covering the Pac 12. I am sure Moos didn't paint a Rosy picture...even though he was somewhat responsible for a lot of the dysfunction.
 
This is from his recruiting mailbag this morning. Ari Wasserman is a senior writer for The Athletic covering college football and recruiting nationally. He previously spent 10 years covering Ohio State for The Athletic and Cleveland.com, starting on the Buckeyes beat in 2009.


This upcoming weekend, Nebraska is hosting what seems to be an excellent list of visitors, the likes of which I have not seen in my 20 years as a Cornhusker fan. Is this what a typical recruiting weekend looks like for the Ohio States, Alabamas and Georgias of the CFB world, or is this a special weekend, regardless of school caliber? — Sam E.

Not to rain on your parade, but I’ve seen official visitors lists that are 10 deep with five-star prospects at Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia. But that isn’t a reason not to get hyped up about what Matt Rhule is doing at Nebraska.

There is a big fish out there, and it seems like Nebraska has a shot at landing him. That big fish? Five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola of Phoenix (Ariz.) Pinnacle, who is planning to take three trips to Nebraska this spring, including this weekend.

When Raiola visited USC on March 4, there was a lot of speculation that the No. 1 overall player would wind up playing for Lincoln Riley. Of course, Riley’s resume with developing quarterbacks is unparalleled in the sport right now, and Los Angeles is much closer to Phoenix than Nebraska. But I’m not sure I’m ready to punt on the idea that Rhule will get this big recruitment done. In fact, I think I’d bet on it. Raiola already visited Nebraska earlier this spring, will return this weekend and is expected to come for the spring game in April. I’ve been covering recruiting for a long time, and sometimes everything you need to know about a prospect’s lean is out there with how much of an effort that player makes to get to campus.

Nebraska has some built-in advantages. Raiola’s uncle is on Nebraska’s staff, and his father played there. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rhule to make a huge recruiting splash right out of the gate.


There is no question that landing a commitment from Raiola could jump-start this entire class. And guess who knows that? Raiola. I would not be shocked to see a commitment soon so he can get to work helping Nebraska sign an elite-level class under the exciting new head coach.

Just because Nebraska’s visitors list isn’t as deep as what we’ve seen at times from Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama doesn’t mean this isn’t an exciting time to be a Nebraska fan.
Mongo was just on the radio putting Raiola at 40 percent and Carter at 80 percent. He hedged the 40 percent by saying a projection on On3 had USC at 41 percent or something like that.
 
In other writers' hands, I'd be worried about the "Nebraska just isn't elite anymore" line being repeated 10x in this story.

With Feldman, I believe he has sources in UNL that actually told him the real story behind Frost and his antics here. So I think Feldman will give us a fair, accurate account of Frost's time here. Though he does tiptoe around the seedy stuff he's heard about Scotty. He's already danced around that on his podcast. I think he knows pretty much everything that went on here, only question is how much he wants to divulge. Probably none of the personal stuff. But hopefully at least the work ethic stuff
He has said in the past that a big part of Frost's problem was the lack of discipline. His argument is that O'Leary was an asshole, Frost came in and loosened things up, and the players responded. But at NU, Riley was already giving players free rein. So Frost's style wasn't going to get a different response out of the players.

I think you can read a lot into the "discipline" idea, and I'm curious how much of that would be alluded to.
 
Was just thinking yesterday with the start of Spring practice, isn’t it great there’s something to discuss other than Dylan.

Nope, here’s yet another thread.

Wake me up when he signs his NLI (to Nebraska)
 
there's likely no waking from a 9-month slumber, my friend.
 
In other writers' hands, I'd be worried about the "Nebraska just isn't elite anymore" line being repeated 10x in this story.

With Feldman, I believe he has sources in UNL that actually told him the real story behind Frost and his antics here. So I think Feldman will give us a fair, accurate account of Frost's time here. Though he does tiptoe around the seedy stuff he's heard about Scotty. He's already danced around that on his podcast. I think he knows pretty much everything that went on here, only question is how much he wants to divulge. Probably none of the personal stuff. But hopefully at least the work ethic stuff
Lots of people are often all too interested in blindly bashing “the media,” but Feldman is legit.
 
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