The writing had pretty much been on the wall since Raiola committed in December that our #1 target may be heading elsewhere, the prospect for the 2025 class out of Iowa made it official when he announced his commitment to Iowa State roughly a week ago:
Nebraska has only 3 scholarship QBs on the roster in Haarberg, Raiola, and Kaelin for the 2024 season. Typically teams will carry at least 4 if not 5 guys at the position. Getting someone in the 2025 class is obviously a priority for this staff as they have been throwing out some more offers to QB recruits. Here are some recent offers:
Those are the January/February offers we have sent out, and it’s obvious that QB is a need according to this staff for the 2025 class. While some people may think it could be difficult to bring in a QB when we just got Raiola, there’s a couple things to remember. First, if the 2025 QB redshirts, Raiola will be a junior by the time this QB would be a RS Freshman and i’m quite certain this staff is telling recruits they expect him to be NFL ready after 3 years starting, so then it would be open competition in his second season of being able to play. But secondly, don’t forget we got an Elite 11 QB to commit to us in the same class as Raiola, so it is possible in the following class to get a good player. I don’t think it’s blind faith to think we can get someone pretty good for 2025. If anything, Raiola may show that elite QBs should come play here to be developed?
By the time this player is a RS freshman, Haarberg would be gone so we need to add some depth at this spot. I believe the staff knows they screwed up not bringing in a high school 2023 kid, but numbers were tough at that point. And I know what some of you are thinking, the reason we got Kaelin was due to him being a local kid that wanted to play here. Nebraska does have a QB that is getting FBS looks in-state this year:
I think you swing for the fences for a guy like Zollers (Penn State already has a 2025 QB commit, but still a long shot as we have to get into his top list of schools) or Iamaleava and if that doesn’t work out you have some time to evaluate some more film on Circo.
If I’m Rhule, Thomas, and Satterfield I shoot for the moon with some highly ranked guys and have Circo at as many camps as possible. Circo is going to have some issues with offers for what some people perceive to be a limited ceiling due to his stature. Rhule and company could use that to their advantage and say that they love all his tools and want to see how he can translate to Lincoln. He’s also a junior so another inch or two of growth isn’t completely unreasonable.
WR CJ Simon Decommits from the 2025 class
We did a dive into what the needs were for the 2025 recruiting class here:
What seemed odd about that article was how I talked about the Raiola effect could be bringing in loads of talent in the following class, but we already had Simon committed and then were going to grab a legacy from Lincoln Southwest at WR as well. While rankings aren’t everything, 50% of your WR class being that lowly ranked after signing Raiola just seemed odd.
There’s a theory out there that since Simon committed on Dec 2nd which was before Raiola committed, that we may have let him go in an effort to bolster our room. We talked about it in the offensive and defensive recruiting class needs, but I feel for the 2024 class our staff “settled” a little early with some recruits and didn’t understand they could get some really elite guys on board. Could that have been the case with Simon? I won’t go there fully, but I do think our staff is not concerned about who they can backfill his spot with. Raiola will be the lead recruiter for WRs and RBs coming into Lincoln for visits.
The decommitment of CJ Simon leaves Nebraska with only local players committed so far for the 2025 class. Between now and April that will certainly change.
Join us on Monday when we go over who we might look to in replacing Tony White once he leaves Lincoln, and Wednesday we will go over our late signing day editions.
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Borderline unfair question. Why is Raiola (just one guy) causing high school and accomplished college QBs to go elsewhere, yet schools like Ohio State, UGA, etc have QB rooms with multiple 4 and 5 star QBs? Is it simply that those schools are the top of the food chain right now and we are not? Or is it something more that we should keep on our radar?
I think when a QB the caliber of Raiola commits he is basically guaranteed something. Fans won’t like to hear that, but it’s the truth. So if Raiola is the starter, you will have trouble getting anyone else. Now, we do have a heavy-hitter coming in for the 2025 class at QB and then Raiola’s brother for 2026, so after him we are fine. But we just don’t have a stockpile of great QBs on the roster. A bunch of mediocre ones so they took off once a five star committed.