There was a time when Nebraska football coaches were pulling out all the stops to try and land Dylan Raiola. Last Friday, he showed exactly why they did.
When the Nebraska football team was going hot and heavy after Raiola, he was playing his high school ball in Arizona. Since committing to the Georgia Bulldogs, he’s uprooted his life in preparation for college and is now playing for Buford High in Georgia.
It’s understandable that Nebraska football fans might have lost track of Raiola. After all, the Huskers moved on rather quickly to Daniel Kaelin once the legacy prospect chose the SEC powerhouse. However, one clip posted on Twitter by user Athens Steve showed exactly why Matt Rhule and the rest of his staff were recruiting him so hard.
In the clip, Raiola can be seen picking up a snap that looks like it scraped the ground, before backpedaling away from pressure a bit. An opposing rush end gets around the rather weak attempts to block of the right tackle and gets his hands on Raiola before he can let go of the ball.
However, that wasn’t the end of the play for the 5-star 2024 prospect. As Raiola is going down, he lets the ball fly before his knee touched down. About 27 yards down field, Raiola’s target hauled down the pass for a nice little play.
https://twitter.com/rainy_steve/status/1705380120243130825?s=46&t=ea61zeKi2TpIAWXWFDfbxg
Former Nebraska football target shows his skills
It’s never great to be reminded of the one that got away. Especially when they’re playing a position the Nebraska football team could certainly use in the very near future.
The assumption and hope is that Kaelin – who went up against Raiola at a summer Elite 11 camp – will be able to make Husker fans forget the nephew of offensive line coach Donovan Raiola was ever a Nebraska football target.
Still, it would have been nice if the Huskers had been able to somehow reel in both.