Matt Rhule pulled off Nebraska football’s biggest recruiting coup in recent memory by flipping five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola from Georgia just before Signing Day in December.
Now it’s his job to decide when to unleash the star quarterback on the Big Ten.
Rumor has it Nebraska fans won’t have to wait long to see him. Brad Crawford of 247Sports made that much clear when responding to a tweet about who the top first-year starters in college football will be this season.
“Based on what I’m hearing…” Crawford tweeted along with a photo of Raiola.
Dylan Raiola looks primed to start for Nebraska
Raiola was spectacular in Nebraska’s Spring Game just a few months after enrolling early. He threw two touchdowns while going 16-of-22 for 239 yards. One of those touchdowns was a 64-yard bomb.
It’s hard to watch those highlights and contain excitement about Raiola’s potential.
The Cornhuskers plan to have their quarterback competition continue into fall camp. Even so, at this stage Raiola feels like the favorite to land the job.
Heinrich Haarberg is Raiola’s biggest challenger. He started eight games in 2023, going 5-3. He actually opened the season as a hybrid receiver but he eventually took over for Jeff Sims at quarterback. He also threw two touchdowns in the spring game, looking capable enough to run the offense.
As encouraging as Haarberg may have looked last year and in the spring, he doesn’t have the soaring ceiling that Raiola has. If he is named the starter to begin the season, he’s going to be under a microscope with fans looking for any reason to put Raiola in.
Rhule can play it conservatively and give Raiola as much time as possible to develop behind the scenes. Or he can be aggressive and hand the freshman the keys to the car right away.
No one knows exactly which route he’ll choose, but we all have our guesses.
The Big Ten is about to have 18 teams which will be vastly different from their 14-team conference that split into two divisions. The conference is adding four teams from what will now be the ruins of the Pac-12.
So looking forward to the 2024 football season, in which coaches have a lot to prove. There are quite a few coaches who are in year one or two working to find their footing in the program, but some have been there for years.
So which Big Ten coaches could find themselves on the hot seat during the 2024 season? Will Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell make the list even though he is in just his second season? Keep reading to see some of the guesses we have
Yes, Mat Rhule has only been at Nebraska for a year and he did help the team improve in his first season, but he needs to show that he can have the success he once had back in the mid-2010s. Rhule has not had a win against a nationally ranked power conference opponent since December 2016 and currently has a 14-game losing against them.
Rhule is still working to just build the program back up from the ruins that Scott Frost left it in, but with the experience Rhule had in college football and then in the NFL, he should be able to build it up fairly fast.
If Rhule managed to somehow take a step backward in 2024, he could feel his seat heating up. He is probably still in his grace period at Nebraska, but he needs to find a way to beat ranked opponents though because the Big Ten will have plenty of them.
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