Did Dylan Raiola and his family handcuff Dana Holgorsen in 2024 and 2025? While Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule didn’t say that explicitly during Big Ten media days, it sure seems like what he was saying. Rhule talked quite a bit about how he thinks Holgorsen will be able to call more of the offense that the former West Virginia and Houston head coach is known for now that Anthony Colandrea and Geep Wade are in Lincoln instead of Dylan and Donovan Raiola.
“Last year, when we were able to win up front, we were able to win the game,” Rhule said of NU’s offense in 2025. “When we couldn’t win up front with our offensive line, we couldn’t win the game. It’s just that simple. I thought Dana did a really admirable job of adjusting his playcalling to what we did well and trying to find a way to win games without a lot of ego.”
That sounds like at least a tiny shot at both Donovan and Dylan. It sounds like Rhule was never really impressed by the job Raiola the coach did with the offensive line unit and that Raiola the player was limited, mainly because he was much more of a statue in the pocket than Holgorsen’s offense normally calls for.
The athletic ability of Colandrea, TJ Lateef and Danny Kaelin, Rhule said, will allow Holgorsen to “call the game without a conscience and go attack.”
Matt Rhule says Nebraska football can finally unleash Dana Holgorsen’s offensex
“He’s got the piece he needs,” Rhule said. “He’s got the receivers, we have the backs, we’ve got a great tight end in Luke (Lindenmeyer). I think Carter Nelson’s going to come on at a high level at tight end. The o-line, really excited about them. I think he’ll be able to call it.”
It’s worth noting that Holgorsen and Rhule said early and often that Nebraska wasn’t going to really run the offense that West Virginia or Houston ran. Instead, it would be more of a hybrid of Holgorsen’s attack with the kind of game plan that Raiola was confident running.
When Nebraska’s starting quarterback went down, the Huskers looked a bit more like what Holgorsen wanted to do with TJ Lateef against UCLA. But Lateef was a true freshman, and when he ran up against better defenses in Penn State, Iowa and Utah, he had a little more trouble running exactly the offense Holgorsen was trying to roll out.
Having previously talked about integrating UNLV plays into the offense and Colandrea being a veteran, paired with Lateef coming into his second year working with the coaching staff, Rhule is clearly excited about what this unit can do.
If Rhule is right, Nebraska fans will be quite happy that the Cornhuskers have moved on to a new era in Lincoln.
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