Donovan Raiola Coaching Progression

[Kinish]

I came pretty far around on Donny. Thought his crootin was good, thought the line was making progress but it's awfully hard to look at the run game and the literal T-last unit in sacks allowed per game and see positives this season.

wait

what if its a dana problem

what if its a scheme issue

aw fuck..

 

[Baron Winnebago]

wait

what if its a dana problem

what if its a scheme issue

aw fuck..

 

[BIGSTICK67]

wait

what if its a dana problem

what if its a scheme issue

aw fuck..

You might be onto something...maybe.

Although could it be more of a mentality issue when it comes to team identity on offense? Rhule just said today in his presser that he'd trust Holgo with his life.

 

[Kinish]

You might be onto something...maybe.

Although could it be more of a mentality issue when it comes to team identity on offense? Rhule just said today in his presser that he'd trust Holgo with his life.

weird thing to say

 

[BIGSTICK67]

weird thing to say

Yeah, with a comment like that, Rhule could paint himself into a corner.

 

[Stan Raymond]

A lot of revisionist history about floating around recently, lettuce revisit his time at Nebraska:

Hired, December 2021 to replace Greg Austin. Nebraska OL has been very underwhelming - Cam Jurgens is the only dude on our line that year, & he's declared for the draft. Frost has basically ignored OL recruiting, and there are just 9(!) scholarship linemen returning for 2022.

Justin Evans is our one offensive line recruit this year - Donnie gets there too late to add to that class, but gets 2 guys out of the portal (Kevin Williams & Hunter Anthony)

2022 - we're playing YOLO ball with Whipple & Casey Thompson. OL is Corc/Banks, Piper, Hixson, Bando & Benhart. We have one of the worst lines in CFB, made to somehow look even worse by our play-calling. Tackles get whipped most plays, interior line is well below average. Our only shot is if we can pass pro long enough for Thompson to hit the back of his drop & launch one to Trey Palmer before getting crushed (fortunately we do that to Cockeye.... hahahahahaha, suck it birds). People mostly hate Donnie & think he's our worst assistant, although most admit he has little to work with.

Rhule is hired, & he retains Donnie to the shock of most people. We finally start recruiting numbers at OL & get Gottula, Knutson, Sledge, Goldman & Maciejzak in the recruiting class, plus Ben Scott as an impact portal guy, & Tyler Knaak & Jacob Hood as developmental transfers. Had Walter Rouse until Oklahoma emptied the bank to flip him.

2023 - Ben Scott plugs in & plays fine. Corc looks moderately improved before injury. OL play as a whole is probably below average, but one of the massive jumps from 2022. There's a little bit of pass pro, and we're not regularly getting shoved into the backfield on offensive run plays. Offense as a whole is a patchwork & hard to evaluate after Jeff Sims goes haywire & Haarberg is running the show as an athlete who can throw a little bit. People go from hating Donnie to being okay/so-so on him.

Recruiting looks promising, adding Brix, Taumua, Pyle, Davidson, Jake Peters, & Ruggeroli. We grab Mazzccua from the portal as an impact guy when he's not trying to start boxing matches mid-game. Plus we get Dylan Raiola, & Donovan definitely didn't hurt with that.

2024 - our OL is even better. Benhart goes from being a running joke at tackle to a poster child for development & fringe NFL prospect. Mazzccua plays pretty well when he's not being retarded. Ben Scott still solid in the middle. Prochazka goes down with a season ending injury in fall camp, & moderately-improved Corc is gone for the season after 4 games & an injury, so we're riding with 3rd string tackle Gottula as our guy at RT. OL as a whole has gone from a below-average group to an above-average group. Besides Mazzccua being mad at Donnie for not sucking his dick, everyone is starting to love Donnie, & he's viewed as one of our top assistants.

Recruiting-wise, we add Shawn Hammerbeck, Juju Marks, Houston Ka'aha'aina-Torres, & Brian Tapu. From the portal, we grab Spindler as an impact guy, & Elijah Pritchett to plug a hole at tackle after losing a couple of our top guys & injuries on other guys lingering.

2025 - this is the first year under Donnie the OL has regressed. Pritchett has talent, but has short-circuits between the ears, so he's inconsistent & not regularly there. Corc & Teddy haven't had that Benhart jump - their continual injuries probably haven't helped that. Gottula is struggling, but out there a year earlier than what he should be as the starter. Interior line is generally decent, but tackles are a major deficiency. Raiola's weaknesses are ones that accentuate the issue.

People are mad at Donnie again (fair enough) but also being potatoes about how we got here and pretending like we didn't have 3 straight notable improvements from being the worst OL in P4 & starting with nothing to develop. The tackle positions are where we haven't gotten it done, but we have been grabbing guys from the portal most years.

We've gone from 9 scholarship OL (& only 4 underclassmen...again, WTF, what Frost did there was criminal) & zero depth to develop to 19, and have what appears to be some viable young depth at OT that looked good against weaker opponents, but isn't ready for P2 games yet. We've hit well on most of our OL in the portal.

This year has been a problem, no doubt, & in Nebraska raging about our OL coach has been a constant for the past 23 years since Tenopir... but when a position group improves its first 3 years under a coach & he did that starting with basically nothing, I'm not ready to join the screaming for his job. I want to see some adjustments/improvements the back half of this season & need to see some signs of life at the tackle positions next year, but the upward trajectory & rebuilding of the position room has been quantifiable up until a few games ago.

Good stuff in there. I don't blame the OL for all of the sacks, but they are a big part of it. Biggest issue I have with Raiola is this is the 4th year with him and so far he has peaked at mediocre to average and now recessed back to bad.

 

[Irv]

You might be onto something...maybe.

Although could it be more of a mentality issue when it comes to team identity on offense? Rhule just said today in his presser that he'd trust Holgo with his life.

There are a lot of people I trust with my life that I don’t trust with Nebraska’s offense. Lots of wiggle room here.

 

[Irv]

You might be onto something...maybe.

Although could it be more of a mentality issue when it comes to team identity on offense? Rhule just said today in his presser that he'd trust Holgo with his life.

But in all honesty, what’s he going to say?

He convinced his boss to spend way too much on an OC who wasn’t cut out for the job, so much so that he demoted him midseason and turned it over to a guy with barely a passing relationship to the program.

Now he’s convinced his employer to pay *that* guy a ton of money, while they have made the previous guy the most expensive tight end coach in football.

I don’t think he’s going to be able to say, “yeah, sorry, I’m zero for two and down a few million dollars. My bad. Also, I have no interest in the Penn state job wink wink”.

 

[2010sarenevercomingback]

Thanks for writing this up. Looks like I’m one of the few who thinks this is a pretty fair assessment. We have to be careful to not lump Dylan’s indecisiveness into being all on the OL. He just holds on to the ball too long and protection breaks down. Cincinnati forced us to make quick, short throws to counter their defense. The play calling needs to account for that again as well as more run plays.

The edge blocking on Friday was bad. That was on the line and not on Dylan. Additionally we’ve heard that in some cases either the rb te did not block their guys.

Our offensive line is far from perfect and not was I expected this year based on early koolaid. But to dump it all on Donovan Raiola is not fair. His nephew carries a good part of the blame, play calling and other position blocking.

Jmho

Yeah, the especially frustrating part for me is that the weaknesses of the line, QB, backs, & OC all seem to be in the same area & compound on each other.

 

[Ripping Lips]

The one coach no one is blaming this year is Satts since he was the fall guy the first 2 years of Rhules tenure. But if I remember correctly, they are still running his offense since Dana moved away from the air raid.

 

[slattimer]

Who is the run game coord….

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Who is the run game coord….

 

[Baron Winnebago]

To be clear, I have no idea if Dana's run schemes or Uncle Donny or whoever are bad. Just leaning into the usual Husker outcome that things are always worse than they appear

 

[Hedley Lamarr]

Seems to me we went from a really really bad OL in 2022, to a really bad OL in 2023, to an average OL in 2024, and now back down to a pretty bad OL this year. Even if you give him a pass on both 2022 and 2023, his units are below average

This ties to a broader theory I have. It's extraordinarily easy for a coach to look competent in comparison with Frost's staff - and we can say "look at the improvement" - but that doesn't make that coach competent in comparison with an average Big Ten peer coach.

The teams that bully ball us in Minnesota and Cockeye have OL coaches who have both have over 2 and a half decades coaching OL. They cut their teeth for years at smaller programs and worked their way up to B1G football.

Im not saying that you can't hit big on an inexperienced coach, because it does happen. BUT id argue Nebraska should be hiring an OL coach who has done the song and dance for a couple decades.

 

[Fargo Husker]

The teams that bully ball us in Minnesota and Cockeye have OL coaches who have both have over 2 and a half decades coaching OL. They cut their teeth for years at smaller programs and worked their way up to B1G football.

Im not saying that you can't hit big on an inexperienced coach, because it does happen. BUT id argue Nebraska should be hiring an OL coach who has done the song and dance for a couple decades.

Maybe we can sway John Garrison back home in the shake up of Lane Train to Florida

 

[king_kong_]

A lot of revisionist history about floating around recently, lettuce revisit his time at Nebraska:

Hired, December 2021 to replace Greg Austin. Nebraska OL has been very underwhelming - Cam Jurgens is the only dude on our line that year, & he's declared for the draft. Frost has basically ignored OL recruiting, and there are just 9(!) scholarship linemen returning for 2022.

Justin Evans is our one offensive line recruit this year - Donnie gets there too late to add to that class, but gets 2 guys out of the portal (Kevin Williams & Hunter Anthony)

2022 - we're playing YOLO ball with Whipple & Casey Thompson. OL is Corc/Banks, Piper, Hixson, Bando & Benhart. We have one of the worst lines in CFB, made to somehow look even worse by our play-calling. Tackles get whipped most plays, interior line is well below average. Our only shot is if we can pass pro long enough for Thompson to hit the back of his drop & launch one to Trey Palmer before getting crushed (fortunately we do that to Cockeye.... hahahahahaha, suck it birds). People mostly hate Donnie & think he's our worst assistant, although most admit he has little to work with.

Rhule is hired, & he retains Donnie to the shock of most people. We finally start recruiting numbers at OL & get Gottula, Knutson, Sledge, Goldman & Maciejzak in the recruiting class, plus Ben Scott as an impact portal guy, & Tyler Knaak & Jacob Hood as developmental transfers. Had Walter Rouse until Oklahoma emptied the bank to flip him.

2023 - Ben Scott plugs in & plays fine. Corc looks moderately improved before injury. OL play as a whole is probably below average, but one of the massive jumps from 2022. There's a little bit of pass pro, and we're not regularly getting shoved into the backfield on offensive run plays. Offense as a whole is a patchwork & hard to evaluate after Jeff Sims goes haywire & Haarberg is running the show as an athlete who can throw a little bit. People go from hating Donnie to being okay/so-so on him.

Recruiting looks promising, adding Brix, Taumua, Pyle, Davidson, Jake Peters, & Ruggeroli. We grab Mazzccua from the portal as an impact guy when he's not trying to start boxing matches mid-game. Plus we get Dylan Raiola, & Donovan definitely didn't hurt with that.

2024 - our OL is even better. Benhart goes from being a running joke at tackle to a poster child for development & fringe NFL prospect. Mazzccua plays pretty well when he's not being retarded. Ben Scott still solid in the middle. Prochazka goes down with a season ending injury in fall camp, & moderately-improved Corc is gone for the season after 4 games & an injury, so we're riding with 3rd string tackle Gottula as our guy at RT. OL as a whole has gone from a below-average group to an above-average group. Besides Mazzccua being mad at Donnie for not sucking his dick, everyone is starting to love Donnie, & he's viewed as one of our top assistants.

Recruiting-wise, we add Shawn Hammerbeck, Juju Marks, Houston Ka'aha'aina-Torres, & Brian Tapu. From the portal, we grab Spindler as an impact guy, & Elijah Pritchett to plug a hole at tackle after losing a couple of our top guys & injuries on other guys lingering.

2025 - this is the first year under Donnie the OL has regressed. Pritchett has talent, but has short-circuits between the ears, so he's inconsistent & not regularly there. Corc & Teddy haven't had that Benhart jump - their continual injuries probably haven't helped that. Gottula is struggling, but out there a year earlier than what he should be as the starter. Interior line is generally decent, but tackles are a major deficiency. Raiola's weaknesses are ones that accentuate the issue.

People are mad at Donnie again (fair enough) but also being potatoes about how we got here and pretending like we didn't have 3 straight notable improvements from being the worst OL in P4 & starting with nothing to develop. The tackle positions are where we haven't gotten it done, but we have been grabbing guys from the portal most years.

We've gone from 9 scholarship OL (& only 4 underclassmen...again, WTF, what Frost did there was criminal) & zero depth to develop to 19, and have what appears to be some viable young depth at OT that looked good against weaker opponents, but isn't ready for P2 games yet. We've hit well on most of our OL in the portal.

This year has been a problem, no doubt, & in Nebraska raging about our OL coach has been a constant for the past 23 years since Tenopir... but when a position group improves its first 3 years under a coach & he did that starting with basically nothing, I'm not ready to join the screaming for his job. I want to see some adjustments/improvements the back half of this season & need to see some signs of life at the tackle positions next year, but the upward trajectory & rebuilding of the position room has been quantifiable up until a few games ago.

This post is revisionist lipstick on the grotesquely incompetent pig that is Uncle Donnie

Actual data:

Sacks per game:
2022 - 2.7 (91st)
2023 - 2.4 (92nd)
2024 - 2.3 (79th)
2025 - 3.6 (131st)

Sack Percentage:
2022 - 8.57% (102nd)
2023 - 10.0% (122nd)
2024 - 6.19% (62nd)
2025 - 11.06% (131st)

Yards per Carry:
2022 - 5.1 (88th)
2023 - 4.9 (100th)
2024 - 4.9 (106th)
2025 - 3.8 (101st)

Dear god

 

[Baron Winnebago]

This post is revisionist lipstick on the grotesquely incompetent pig that is Uncle Donnie

Actual data:

Sacks per game:
2022 - 2.7 (91st)
2023 - 2.4 (92nd)
2024 - 2.3 (79th)
2025 - 3.6 (131st)

Sack Percentage:
2022 - 8.57% (102nd)
2023 - 10.0% (122nd)
2024 - 6.19% (62nd)
2025 - 11.06% (131st)

Yards per Carry:
2022 - 5.1 (88th)
2023 - 4.9 (100th)
2024 - 4.9 (106th)
2025 - 3.8 (101st)

Dear god

 

[djw004]

I’m not buying any of the it takes time bullshit anymore and none of you should either. There are teams with far far less talent on the OL that have exponentially better units. It’s all coaching and we have zero.

Tenacity and Technique. that's what we are looking at on the OL in 2025

every single guy is a 300+ lb monster that has access to incredible weight staff - do you have the work ethic, tenacity, and technique to maximize your frame? That's the question.

 

[djw004]

Here's a question posed to me yesterday:

Would you trade a new OL coach that has you in the top 1/3 of B1G OL's within 3 years for the likely result of losing Dylan after firing Donnie? In his scenario, he highlighted that we likely have Dylan for 17 games plus any postseason that results from those 17 games.

I said this might be the easiest hypothetical ever and to give me the top 1/3 OL all day. Although I don't believe they would both have to occur. I'm firmly in the camp that Dom knows the business of football, and the thing he's MOST concerned about right now is likely his son's health and draft stock over his brother's job. I can see a world where we move on from Donnie and Dylan stays.

 

[iruletheskool]

Here's a question posed to me yesterday:

Would you trade a new OL coach that has you in the top 1/3 of B1G OL's within 3 years for the likely result of losing Dylan after firing Donnie? In his scenario, he highlighted that we likely have Dylan for 17 games plus any postseason that results from those 17 games.

I said this might be the easiest hypothetical ever and to give me the top 1/3 OL all day. Although I don't believe they would both have to occur. I'm firmly in the camp that Dom knows the business of football, and the thing he's MOST concerned about right now is likely his son's health and draft stock over his brother's job. I can see a world where we move on from Donnie and Dylan stays.

Yes