Nebraska names Dylan Raiola starting quarterback

Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule has named Dylan Raiola the next starting quarterback of the Cornhuskers.

This comes shortly before Rhule’s second season at Nebraska gets underway with a home game on August 31st against UTEP. The Cornhuskers are coming off a 5-7 season in Rhule’s first year with the program having once again missed a bowl game. It’s now been since 2016 since Nebraska made it to a bowl game.

Heading into the offseason, Nebraska knew it was going to have a quarterback battle. Dylan Raiola joined the program as a five-star recruit in the 2024 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. The expectation was that he would immediately push Heinrich Haarberg to become the team’s starting quarterback in 2024.

Beyond Raiola and Haarberg, Nebraska has four other quarterbacks on the roster. However, the battle was largely focused around those two.

As a senior in high school, Raiola completed 63 percent of his passes for 2,666 yards and 34 touchdowns. He also had just one interception that season. Along the way, he led Buford to the quarterfinals of the state playoffs. He came to Nebraska largely seen as the future of the program at the quarterback position. At the same time, he also entered the quarterback battle without any college experience.

For his part, Haarberg entered the offseason with a solid amount of experience. Now a junior, Haarberg played in 10 games during the 2023 regular season. He completed 49 percent of his passes for 967 yards and seven touchdowns to seven interceptions. He also ran for 477 yards and five touchdowns.

A major issue for Nebraska in 2023, especially coming from the quarterback position, was turnovers. Nebraska finished 133 in fumbles lost out of 133 FBS teams with 15 lost fumbles in 12 games. Interceptions were bad too, with 16 on the season. That was 121st in the country. It amounted to a -17 turnover differential for the season and likely cost the Cornhuskers multiple games.

Matt Rhule recently shared some of the changes Nebraska has made to try and prevent more of those turnovers.

“The number one thing is the players believing. When the player starts seeing Gabe [Ervin Jr.] run with the ball like this — and they start saying like, ‘Oh, high and tight.’ That’s where it changes, or guys will even start getting on each other because we’re not punching at the ball. That’s what starts to change,” Rhule said.

“And so I believe that our players — I keep telling them everything you go through in life prepares you for something unless you ignore it. Losing all those close games last year — and some of them have done in multiple years — and having a -17 turnover ratio. If that would have been even we might have won nine games. It’s ridiculous. And I don’t think we were necessarily a nine-win team, but that speaks to the credit of a lot of good things we did. But one thing messed it up. We’ll fix it.”

Now, Nebraska has its quarterback in place for the 2024 season. With that, the Cornhuskers can look to improve on offense and in the wins column.