Matt Rhule evaluates Dylan Raiola's freshman season, pinpoints similarity to Patrick Mahomes

Dylan Raiola capped his rollercoaster true freshman season at Nebraska with a bang, and he did it inside the legendary home of the New York Yankees.

Raiola completed 23-of-31 passes for 228 yards and a touchdown to power the Cornhuskers (7-6) to a 20-15 win over Boston College in Saturday’s Pinstripe Bowl from Yankee Stadium.

But it was how Raiola, the much-balleyhooed former five-star quarterback signee, did it that truly rang the loudest with second-year Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule.

When asked to put his rookie signal-caller’s season into proper perspective, Rhule harkened back to a key selling point he made when recruiting Raiola, and how one moment in Saturday’s bowl game could signal even bigger things ahead.

“Yeah, I mean, I think he’s had a great first year. Playing quarterback as a freshman in the Big Ten is not easy,” Rhule said of Raiola, who finished 2024 with 2,823 yards on 276-of-411 (67.2%) passing with 13 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. “One of the things I told Dylan was, ‘Hey, you can go some places where the team at the present moment is significantly better than all the teams around them, and then you’re going to have to maybe once a year or twice a year make a throw to win a game, and then you’re going to get drafted by probably the worst team in the NFL, and they’re going to say, hey, put every game on your back.

“So you look at the great players in the NFL — the (Patrick) Mahomes — every game that Mahomes was at Texas Tech he had to go win the game for them to even have a chance,” Rhule continued. “So Dylan has had those opportunities this year. Dylan, for us to have a chance, you’re going to have to play well. Everyone else has to do the same thing, but that last drive, for us to win the game, he had to go play well.”

Matt Rhule: ‘The sky’s the limit for’ Dylan Raiola

The comparisons between Raiola and Mahomes are extensive, and run far deeper than Raiola regularly emulating of Mahomes’ unique look and play style.

For Rhule, it was Raiola’s decision to keep the ball on the second play of Nebraska’s final series Saturday as the Cornhuskers attempted to run the clock out of Boston College‘s fourth-quarter comeback effort. Raiola’s run only went for five yards, but it was his ability to not only absorb a personal foul penalty at the end of it, but bounce up and then keep it again three plays later on third-and-4 deep in BC territory ahead of the 2-minute warning. The ensuing 11-yard run by Rahmir Johnson on fourth-and-3 sealed the win and allowed Raiola and the Huskers to end the game in the victory formation.

“For him to pull the ball — the one he pulled the ball, we never suspected he was going to pull it there, has that run, gets hit, pulls the ball on the second one, now he slid, but still he did the things that are hard to do to win a game,” Rhule said. “That’s what I’m looking for in a quarterback. Everyone is talking right now about who should be the first pick when I’m watching TV and all that stuff. Like, tell me the guys, tell me the guys who do hard things to win, and that’s who I want to be my quarterback.

“I was really happy for Dylan that he did that,” Rhule concluded. “He’s gotten so much better as the year has gone on in terms of his feet, his movement, those things. And he’ll have a great off-season, and he’ll make another huge jump. Really, the sky’s the limit for him.”