Dylan Raiola recalls his biggest draw to Nebraska in recruitment

In his first season with the program, Nebraska Cornhuskers quarterback Dylan Raiola got the program back to bowl eligibility. Now, he’s looking to get them to the next level by being competitive in the Big Ten race this season.

At the time when Raiola committed to Nebraska, the Cornhuskers hadn’t been to a bowl since 2016. Still, he saw the potential in the program and flipped to the Cornhuskers. As he explained on Hail Varsity,

“Every time that I committed to a place,” Dylan Raiola said. “I was all in on that place. When plans had changed and things opened back up, there was always something that was like, you could go to Nebraska and be a part of something special. I didn’t have the courage at the time, being a junior in high school, I didn’t really know what that was gonna look like. So, for me, it was like it’s gonna be a step, it’s gonna be hard, but, ultimately, at the end of the day, you can do something that you want to do, and what you really love.”

Dylan Raiola was a five-star recruit in the Class of 2024. He was the 21st-ranked recruit overall and the third-ranked quarterback in that recruiting cycle. At various points, he was also committed to other schools, including Ohio State and Georgia. However, he ultimately flipped his recruitment to a school that is fighting to get back to competing for championships instead of competing for a bowl bid.

“When it came down to it, this was the only place that I felt I could go to a place, earn my stripes,” Raiola said. “And do something special that really, honestly, no player in college football could do, which was help, along with my teammates and Coach [Matt] Rhule, bring back a program to national championship level status. So, it was hard. The first year was very hard. There were a lot of growing pains. After some of those losses, it was like, man, this is hard. But it just shapes who you are as a person. You just learn so much through it.”

At one point, Nebraska was among the most consistent contenders in the country and has 46 conference titles and five national titles to its credit. Things have been a struggle recently, though, and the Cornhuskers didn’t make a bowl game from 2017 to 2023. Their first year back in a bowl, Raiola was just a freshman. Now, he wants to get the Cornhuskers all the way back.

“We knew it was going to be hard. I have great respect for both of those coaches at Ohio State at Georgia. I still pull for them to this day,” Raiola said. “But when it came down to it, it was something in my gut that was telling me this is a place. This is what you’re gonna do and with my family, with God, I have everybody on my side to kind of take on this journey of doing something really hard. I think you go through it, and hopefully it comes to fruition. You look back and ‘This is why we did it.’ Here we are now, hopefully, January 20th with the trophy in our hands.”

Dylan Raiola and Nebraska are hoping to take another major step forward now. That starts on Thursday, August 28th, with a neutral site game against the Cincinnati Bearcats.