Dylan Raiola breaks down what must happen for Nebraska to have more success downfield

After struggling on offense the past few weeks, Nebraska Cornhuskers quarterback Dylan Raiola knows that it’s important to find more downfield success. He also knows that much of that is going to fall on him.

While speaking to the media, Raiola shouldered the blame for not getting the ball downfield enough while praising his receivers and sharing he’s excited to take on the challenge of improving.

“It starts with me and kind of directing things,” Dylan Raiola said. “It’s a good challenge and I look forward to accepting it. Our guys can run and I just have to do better at getting the ball down the field to them and allowing them to go make plays and showcase their abilities. So, I’ll take that one on me.”

Through seven games in his freshman season, Dylan Raiola has completed 66.2 percent of his passes for 1,592 yards and nine touchdowns to six interceptions. He’s throwing for 7.5 yards per attempt. As a team, Nebraska is 57th in passing offense with 243.1 yards per game. The Cornhuskers are tied for 60th in yards per attempt.

Through all of that, the passing game and Raiola have struggled in the past couple of weeks. In Nebraska’s last two games, Raiola hasn’t thrown a touchdown but he has thrown four interceptions, three of which came against Indiana. In the win over Rutgers, Raiola had a career low in completion percentage and passing yards.

Matt Rhule addresses turnovers from Dylan Raiola in loss to Indiana

Turnovers were one of several issues that Nebraska had in the loss to Indiana. Now, Matt Rhule has shared his thoughts on the issues that Dylan Raiola ran into.

“We don’t want any of those, and those aren’t excuses to them, but everything’s not kind of as it seems. I thought Dylan did a lot of really, really good things in the game. Unfortunately, the game plan we had going in, when it hit 28-7, kind of starts to alter a little bit. We were going to have to throw the ball a little more than maybe we wanted to. Indiana’s an elite pass rush team, and so our hope was to be able to mix the run and the pass when it got away from us,” Rhule said.

“But I don’t think people are doing anything differently, each week we’re facing better teams and we have to continue to improve and play better…My main thing in life as a coach is not to panic, not to overreact, we can’t change everything. Just keep getting better at it until they’re the best that they are. But I wanted Dylan to stay in that game in that situation. I wanted him to have to battle through all that. He went through three interceptions, he suffered through that, and hopefully we get better as we move forward. But I think he’s playing well, I really do. It might not seem that way to everybody, but when I watch the tape, I like most of everything that he’s doing and we’ll keep building off it, because the teams keep getting better and better.” 

Nebraska and Dylan Raiola will look to bounce back against Ohio State on Saturday in what should be a major test.