Flipping 5-star Dylan Raiola would mean everything for Nebraska, but it's not a death knell for Georgia
After two years of pure bliss, the last two weeks have been a little rough for Georgia.
Lose to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, miss the College Football Playoff and now the Bulldogs’ 5-star quarterback commit Dylan Raiola is likely to flip to Nebraska at the 11th hour before the Early Signing Period next week.
The news Monday from On3’s Chad Simmons that Raiola, the nation’s No. 17 overall prospect, was suddenly flirting with Nebraska days before he was set to report to Athens was absolutely a stunner in recruiting circles. Since flipping to Georgia from Ohio State in May, Raiola had moved across the country from Arizona and played his senior season at Buford High (Ga.) in Atlanta. He was in Athens constantly, helping recruit Georgia’s No.1-ranked 2024 class.
Yet within hours of the news leaking, Raiola was seen as a done deal to Nebraska. The quarterback will officially visit Lincoln this weekend and it would be a shock if he wasn’t a Cornhuskers’ commit by Sunday.
While the timing is a tad curious, the whys here are fairly straightforward — there are very strong family ties to the Nebraska program with his father Dominic Raiola starring for the Cornhuskers in the late ‘90s. His uncle Donovan Raiola is the current OL coach at Nebraska who recently received a 53% raise. There’s likely a faster path to playing time in Lincoln and the potential big NIL bag.
Yet none of that should diminish what this would mean for Matt Rhule’s program and his staff.
It’s easy to joke on Rhule, who recently complained about it costing $1-2 million to land a good quarterback, especially when the Cornhuskers are also rumored to be on the verge of landing former 5-star Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord, but a commitment from Dylan Raiola would validate everything Rhule is trying to do in Lincoln.
There are no earthquakes in Nebraska, but that’s what this would be.
Blue-chip quarterbacks who stand 6-3 and can sling it don’t grow on trees, and in modern college football, they definitely don’t play at Nebraska.
But now one might.
Raiola looks like he’s choosing to carve his own path, turning down a blueblood title contender to play savior for a once proud program.
Should Raiola flip, it wouldn’t just rubber-stamp Rhule’s plan to turn around Nebraska, but it would sow his proof of concept into the soil like a fresh batch of corn.
Could Raiola turn the Cornhuskers into a Big Ten contender? Maybe. He certainly would provide Nebraska hope and potential — and for a program that once won national titles and now hasn’t made a bowl game since 2016, that is not nothing.
But while this is a fascinating recruiting story for the Cornhuskers, Raiola’s impending flip is not some sudden death knell to Kirby Smart’s program on the other.
One of the best hallmarks of college football is all the schadenfreude, but while UGA’s rivals are certainly enjoying all that’s happened here, the Bulldogs’ faithful would be wise to heed the words of another famous quarterback.
The sky is not falling in Athens.
No program wants to lose a 5-star quarterback commit. Not in July. And certainly not in mid-December. There’s no sugar-coating the bad timing or poor optics, but as big of a boon as this would be for Nebraska, it’s more akin to a bee-sting for the Bulldogs.
As long as Kirby Smart is the head coach at Georgia the program will be fine.
The Bulldogs have won 45 of their last 47 games — mostly with a former walk-on quarterback and a former 4-star prospect in Carson Beck. If any program can withstand losing a 5-star quarterback, it’s Georgia.
Raiola is a tremendous talent. The Bulldogs recruited him aggressively for a reason. But Raiola wasn’t going to be in Georgia’s QB plans in 2024, whether Beck, who is rumored to be leaning toward returning to school for his senior season, was on campus or not.
The Bulldogs will ride into next season with a potential Heisman Trophy frontrunner, or they’ll add a transfer to compete with redshirt freshman Gunner Stockton. The earliest Raiola would’ve seen the field is 2025, where he would’ve had to beat out Stockton and fellow 2024 signee Ryan Puglisi.
So while Georgia’s future QB plans would be up in smoke, in today’s age of constant QB movement in the transfer portal, you’re always a day away from shaking up the snow globe anyway.
Ultimately, Raiola’s potential flip would mean a lot more to Nebraska than it would signal the downfall of Georgia’s budding dynasty.