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Big Ten mistakenly calls Dylan Raiola by father Dominic's name, doubles down

On3 imageby:Sam Gillenwater•09/02/24•

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Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola
Dylan Widger | USA TODAY Sports

Dominic Raiola hasn’t played college football in nearly a quarter of a century. However, per the social accounts of the Big Ten, he was momentarily the initial Big Ten Freshman of the Week this season.

The honor was obviously going to Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola. Still, Big Ten Football not only tweeted the announcement of it for Dominic, his father, but also shared his first game’s highlights against UTEP on Saturday under the same name.

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After the mistake, though, the Big Ten has since corrected both tweets with the right name now listed.

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To be fair, there are several Raiolas to keep track of in Lincoln.

The most notable is the new quarterback of the Cornhuskers’ in Dylan Raiola. This comes after he made his collegiate debut this weekend where he went 19-27 (70.4%) for 238 yards and two touchdowns. That was the initial game for him at Nebraska after he committed to them as a five-star and the No. 3 QB in 2024.

Next up would be his father and the name in question here in Dominic Raiola. He spent three seasons as the center on the offensive line for Nebraska from 1998 to 2000. In that time, he was a two-time selection for All Big-12, was a Consensus First-Team All-American, and was a finalist for both The Lombardi Award and The Outland Trophy. He then went on to have a 14-year professional career in the NFL with the Detroit Lions after being a second-round pick in 2021.

Finally, Donovan Raiola has been the offensive line coach for the ‘Huskers for the last three seasons.

Dayton Raiola is also another one to come in the future as a quarterback prospect with interest and offers, including from Nebraska, in 2026.

You can certainly see where the mistake was made by Big Ten Football. Still, it’s an error nonetheless, especially with it being the first career recognition for Raiola.

Matt Rhule analyzes Raiola’s first start

Following the 40-7 win for Nebraska on Saturday, Matt Rhule broke down what he saw from Raiola in his first career start. That included some intangibles at the line of scrimmage that may not show up in a quarterback’s stats.

“There was some good and there was some bad,” Matt Rhule said. “The best one was he three-way checked the long run by Emmett (Johnson), right. Like, he checked it and they kind of moved and he checked it back. So, then he checked it again and got us to that run. So, when you have a freshman that’s checking and reloading things? That’s an unbelievable job by (Marcus Satterfield) putting those things in, great job by Glenn (Thomas) teaching it, great job by Dylan learning it. Then the o-line and all those other guys need to be on the right call.”

“There was some other things. Like, there was third-and-two where he heard RPO, the receivers didn’t. So, there were some of those moments,” Rhule said. “I thought the biggest thing was, until that last one, we were 11 of 16 on third down. I think we probably finished 11 of 17 on third down. A lot of those were runs late in the game but I think we had some really big third down conversions.”

“Then, I told you guys…with eight seconds left and a timeout to take a shot in the endzone,” Rhule said. “That is saying that we’re gonna play the way we want him to play someday. I didn’t call a timeout and say, ‘Now. remember, get it up, get it down’. He took a shot and boom. So, I was really happy with that. So, I thought, for a first game for Dylan, a lot of great things. I think there’s a lot of things we have to clean up as a staff and we will.”