Why Dylan Raiola's commitment marks a new era for Nebraska
5-star quarterback Dylan Raiola is set to become the highest-rated recruit to ever sign with Nebraska. How did it happen and did NIL play a part?
Brandon Marcello6 hrs
Matt Rhule has been building toward a program-changing moment at Nebraska, and frankly, it may have arrived sooner than planned Monday.
For the Huskers, the commitment of superstar quarterback Dylan Raiola, who ranks No. 2 in the class of 2024's Top247 rankings, is an inflection point for a former blueblood program that has hovered outside the closed doors of the college football party for more than a decade.
There's plenty to celebrate today in Lincoln, Nebraska, but let's not make gross projections or wonder if Rhule's rebuilding project is ahead of schedule after Raiola flipped from his seven-month commitment to Georgia.
Nebraska is set to sign the highest-rated recruit in school history, and potentially its most impactful player since
Ndamukong Suh. Raiola, a 6-foot-3 passer with a fantastic, fluid throwing motion, could change the Huskers' tenor in the offseason and potentially their win total next fall, but for now, just know that Nebraska is relevant in recruiting for the first time in more than a decade.
The party doors are open and the Huskers are finally back in the club.
Why did Raiola flip from Georgia to Nebraska?
Raiola is the son of a Nebraska legend. His family is Huskers royalty. He has always been interested in Nebraska and the pull has been constant.
His father, Dominic, is a Huskers legend, a former All-American whose No. 54 jersey is retired in Lincoln. Uncle Donovan is on Rhule's staff — and recently received a 53% pay raise — and enters his third season as the Huskers' offensive line coach next fall.
Family plays a factor, and so does the opportunity for immediate playing time.
Carson Beck is set to return as starter at Georgia next season and competition behind him is expected to be fierce. Plus, there is the NIL factor (more on that later).
Rhule's grand plan
"Rebuild" is a dirty word in the sport in the NIL era, particularly if the coach asks fans for patience. After all, why not fix every issue overnight via the
Transfer Portal? That's not Rhule's style — and it hasn't quite proven true at any program in the early years of the portal. A 5-7 record at Nebraska in Rhule's first year was an improvement from the doldrums of
Scott Frost era, but the Huskers fell short of a bowl berth, which was within reach for most of the latter half of the season.
"If anyone is mad at us with how hard we work then so be it. We're doing everything we can to move this in the right direction, and if anyone thinks this is a one-year deal, then God bless them," Rhule told reporters Nov. 29. "This is a build. This is a complete and total build. We have to build this thing the right way."
Rhule's blueprint is simple: recruit and sign high school athletes, including a handful of highly-rated prospects, and develop them into superstars. That seems impossible in the era of the Transfer Portal with players opting to leave for another program for a bigger paycheck, but the most successful teams in the College Football Playoff era have followed the same plan.
For the first time, however, Nebraska is set to sign the same caliber of superstar only the likes of Georgia, Alabama, Texas or USC pick up yearly. When I visited Nebraska last spring, Rhule told me he expected blue-chip prospects would pay attention to the Huskers, but he didn't know when or how many would sign. After all, Nebraska isn't quite the national brand it once was when
Tommie Frazier and
Eric Crouch contended for national titles 20 to 30 years ago.
Why Nebraska's NIL collective is important
(Photo: Getty)
The missing ingredient needed to awaken Nebraska's potential is NIL. The Huskers' fan base is as large and rabid as any in the country. Their fans have sold out every home game since 1962 despite seven straight losing seasons. Not much has excited or mobilized the fan base in the last 10 years as the prospect of directly steering the program back into the national spotlight.
Nebraska's new NIL collective, The 1890 Initiative, launched a "Countdown To Signing Day" fundraiser last week. The goal is $500,000, which has nearly been met just a few days into the fundraiser, and an anonymous donor is set to match the first $250,000.
"When NIL kind of hit two and a half years ago, I was personally excited for it, because I knew Nebraska had a chance to be great at it, given the history of the program, the passionate fan base," said
Matt Davison, president of the 1890 Initiative, the Huskers' primary NIL collective.
The plan came together in October 2022 as Nebraska brass worked behind the scenes to fire Frost amidst his fifth straight losing season. Megadonors Tom and Shawn Peed launched the 1890 Initiative and provided the infrastructure and cash needed to operate the collective in downtown Lincoln. One hundred percent of operating costs — travel, staffing and marketing — are covered by the Peeds, and 100% of donations from fans are used to pay players via NIL contracts. How much cash the collective would hypothetically reward a high-profile signee like Raiola is not known publicly.
"When it comes to the numbers, we don't really speak about it," Davison said. "What I would say is, I'm confident that we're going to be able to be competitive in this landscape and give Coach Rhule a great chance to be successful."
Rhule captured headlines earlier this month when he said the quiet part aloud: a program-changing quarterback in the portal carries a price tag ranging from $1 million to $2 million. Whether Nebraska's collective is willing to pay that much to a new player is not known.
Obviously, Raiola is a high school prospect and not a proven two- or three-year starter in the portal. Also, consider Rhule's mantra adopted from legendary NFL executive
Bill Polian: never make a free agent the highest-paid player on your roster.
"If you want to have a healthy locker room, let guys know, 'Hey, if you stay here, what you do will be rewarded,'" Rhule said Nov. 29.
Rhule's pitch always comes back to development
Money certainly plays a part for recruits in the NIL era, but at Nebraska, it seems not to be the determining factor for Raiola, whose connection to Huskers lore runs deep. Railoa's visit to Lincoln last weekend was his eighth since June 2021. His father, Dominic, is a Huskers legend, a former All-American whose No. 54 jersey is retired in Lincoln. Uncle Donovan is on Rhule's staff and enters his third season as the Huskers' offensive line coach next fall.
"This guy is a mastermind at rebuilding college football programs," Dominic said of Rhule during an appearance in February on The Connor Happer Radio Show. "You can say that because he did Temple and he did Baylor. And for the stage that Nebraska is on, it's huge, right? So if he can do that there at Nebraska, or when he does that there, it's not a matter of 'if' but 'when...' He's doing it right. It's not going to be because of lack of discipline or lack of want-to at this point."
Again, Rhule's blueprint is well known. He builds programs through high school recruiting and player development.
Raiola will be only the third 5-star prospect to sign with Nebraska since 2000 and the first since running back
Marlon Lucky in 2005. Nebraska is betting that Rhule’s history of developing 3- and 4-star prospects into NFL Draft picks will reverse the Huskers' fortunes.
Twenty-three players from Rhule’s seven teams at Temple and Baylor were selected in the NFL Draft. Nebraska has produced only 21 draft picks since 2013, Rhule’s first season as a college head coach — and that includes a four-year break from college coaching.
Rhule mastered an old/new school concept at Temple and Baylor, where he flipped programs with double-digit losses in his first season into double-digit winners in Year 3. At those jobs, he was malleable in philosophy and consistent with a practice-as-you-preach approach in a player-first environment. Rhule won 10 games in consecutive years and won an AAC title shortly after Temple jumped from the MAC to the Big East and then the AAC. He inherited a Baylor program hobbled by a Title IX scandal and flipped a one-win record in 2017 into an 11-win roster with a Big 12 Championship appearance in 2019.
“He's gonna hate that I said this, but he is borderline genius," Nebraska defensive line coach
Terrance Knighton, who played for Rhule at Temple, told me last spring. "He does everything with a purpose. He knows how to get things out of certain guys and coaches. He builds a competitive nature within a locker room. He's just got this way to express himself. You can feel it's authentic.”
If that approach — along with NIL dollars and Huskers history — was enough to convince Raiola to flip to Nebraska, perhaps the Huskers are finally on the right track as they build a new and modern Big Red Machine.
Brandon Marcello is a national college football reporter for 247Sports. You can follow him on X (@bmarcello).
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