Yesterday the Husker Twitter-verse went into a frenzy as we were all geeked up to have Kyle McCord visit from Ohio State to be our transfer QB that would get us to a bowl game for 2024. Then all of a sudden Steve Wiltfong said “hold my beer” and came with this bomb
Let’s go back to the beginning with Raiola. He was committed to Ohio State, opened things back up and Nebraska was very much in the hunt. I had spoken with Matt Davison about NIL at Nebraska before, he thinks we are in a good spot. But when bringing up Raiola he came with “that would be a whole different situation… 7 figures for multiple years.” Now he wasn’t quite saying we couldn’t do it, but my read on the situation was that a 7 figure NIL deal would be so lopsided for what we are currently doing with our football team that it just wasn’t ready to be handled.
And I don’t mean that from just the donors and/or 1890. I mean that even Rhule didn’t really want to be in a situation where a player that had done nothing for your team was making the most money by far within your program. So while we weren’t quite there with donations yet, our head coach wasn’t quite there for wanting to do that anyway. All a moot point as Georgia stepped up their offer, was the National Champion, and off he went to committing to Georgia and moving there for his Senior year.
Nebraska Goes Through The 2023 Season
We all know the story, Nebraska with competent QB play could have been to a bowl game. But as it stood, we were playing guys that were runners first and passing ability was a secondary skillset. Chubba Purdy who probably was the best suited out of the 3 sat out the majority of the 2023 season being injured, so he was barely even an option until the end of the year.
I’ll do an article on McCord once he commits, but essentially we go after 5 guys and McCord we end up landing on as our guy. The big catch was the fact that McCord was not going to even visit here unless we verbally told him we would give him the money he was asking for (north of 7 figures). We secure that from a donor. McCord heads to Lincoln yesterday.
Then Something Weird Happens
We give Donnie Raiola an extension and a raise, and all of a sudden Matt Rhule telling the Raiola’s that it was never about the recruit and always about his belief in Donnie was backed up.
While Dylan Raiola is all set to move into his housing in Athens next week, something crazy happens down there. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but it was enough for them to make the call to Nebraska. The rumor is that they tried messing with his NIL package they had worked out. Now, keep in mind we have Kaelin committed and are all set to tell McCord he’s our guy yesterday. But once 7 figures is given to one QB, why not the #1 QB in the nation we told “no” to originally? The phone call is made that we aren’t as against giving you this as we once were, and are you still interested?
The News Leaks
So everyone is confused why this leaked yesterday. My best guess quite frankly is that we told McCord you are our guy, just want you to be aware that the #1 QB in the nation is visiting this weekend. We’d like to have you on board to show him the ropes so we can hand the keys over later. Remember, even though Raiola is one of the top recruits in the country, he wasn’t planning on starting at Georgia as they return 2nd Team SEC QB Carson Beck. So him coming here doesn’t all of a sudden make it so he has to sit the bench (though one would wonder if you’re coming to a team that hasn’t made a bowl game in 7 years that you should start).
My Read As Of Right Now
The timing of this just leads me to believe we very well could get both of these guys. There’s no way McCord visited here and said “no way i’m out” so our Plan B is the #1 QB recruit in the country. Nebraska isn’t that kind of program.
I think they had to tell McCord what was up, he said he’s ok with it, and Raiola was informed we booked his official visit for this weekend. If I had to predict, McCord will commit while here and Raiola will come and commit this weekend giving us time to possibly shuffle some things around and grab another commit/transfer or two.
It feels good to have some positive news coming our way for once. Get pumped Husker fans, because I think we are reeling both of them in.
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No way this happens.
Definitely the favorite in Vegas.
Thoughts on Kaelin then? We said we’d honor his scholly, but any idea how he’s taking the news?
That’s a good question, his teammates seem to be ok with it. I would definitely be a little concerned if I was him but I also know he isn’t scare of competition.
What do you think is going to happen with Kaelin is this all comes true? Or will that be in a future write up? Thank you for all this insight!
Basing this strictly off the stats he put up with two other commits at WR, let him walk. He obviously needs some seasoning, so if I am him, I still come because the new guy went to 4 high schools and committed to 2 (hopefully 3) different schools, so you’ll get your shot if you stick it out a few years.
Ya, there is definitely some red flags with Raiola. Is it 3 or 4 different high schools? But you take a talent like his every day of the week.
Just responded to someone else but we really do need 2 guys anyway. But if i’m Kaelin not sure that’s the kind of competition you want, even though he wouldn’t run away from it.
I had read it was 4 H.S. and 2 college commitments.
I don’t want to call him a diva or something, or say the family is an issue. I don’t know whatever the case is. But if it were any other family than a Nebraska alum I’d probably look at the situation and not be questioning why there seems to be a new school or commitment somewhere every single year.
So whatever the case is I think there are Red flags, and if he does commit I think people need to have the assumption that he could bolt down the road. But that’s just a risk you take for that talent.
LFFFFFFG!!! I am unfamiliar with the feelings inside of me about Nebraska football the past two days. I believe it is called optimism. I still have 20 years of scar tissue telling me we’ll probably find a way to screw this all up however.
The good news is we will at least get one of the two!
Thanks for your write up. Adds some clarity to the etherverse last night. Crazy if Rhule/Sat can pull this off. Any thoughts about the QB coach that’s being tossed around.
I need to actually get a legitimate person to tell me it’s this Christiansen guy. Not sure if that’s true or not, but would love to have an actual QB coach, Satt wasn’t supposed to be doing it.
Thanks for the sane reporting on this craziness. An UGA friend of mine claims that NU offered DR $3 million and UGA did not match the offer. Is that UGA sour grapes or is there something to it. I hope the $3MM is fabricated.
From what I was told, UGA tried changing things up a bit on Raiola (still way more than I make lol) and they didn’t like that if that was already happening we don’t trust it. Then Rhule extending his uncle and always having the same talk track, they reached out to ask if we could match. We said yes.
I am pretty confident in saying we didn’t just swoop in with a massive offer and make him reconsider. Something happened and we said we’d match.
Excellent reporting, as usual. If we get one, it totally changes my outlook on next year. If we get both, I’ll be chugging the Kool-Aid for the foreseeable future. Honestly, both would also motivate me to donate 1890 to do my part in keeping this train going. Hopefully others would do that too.
There’s a rumor floating around that this donation was independent of 1890 which I find interesting.
I was curious if Rhule’s comments about how much QB would cost was a shot across the bow to spur donors, if you think we need a QB then money is gonna talk? If not then we are running with what we got, and the slow build is on the table.
I think there was a little gamesmanship there with Rhule. But I also think it was him changing his philosophy specifically for the QB position.
A couple weeks ago, Nebraska was considered around 25-50 in the size of NIL programs. Will this latest donation(s) vault us into the stratosphere with the NIL big dogs, or is this just a temporary anomaly?