Nebraska's Football's Matt Rhule Comfortable With Dylan Raiola's Readiness

Huskers' head coach cites freshman quarterback's maturity, knowledge and work ethic: "If he goes out there in game one, he'll be ready."

Dylan Raiola rolls out during the 2024 Nebraska football spring game. / Kenny Larabee, KLIN

A week into preseason camp, Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule talked about his quarterbacks in an interview Tuesday. While he didn't name Dylan Raiola as the starter, Rhule did nothing to dispel the widely held belief that the true freshman would be under center when the Huskers' season begins Aug. 31 against UTEP.

Rhule's remarks came during a 15-minute discussion with Zach Gelb of Infinity Sports Network. There was plenty of talk about the Huskers' defense and other topics, but quarterbacking came up at various times.

Some points of interest:

On Raiola work ethic: "He's studied everything. If a receiver lines up wrong, he knows it. A lot of guys when they're that age, they're playing kind of not clear-minded because they just know what they're supposed to do, but Dylan knows what every guy on the field's supposed to do because he's put so much time and work in. He loves to compete, he loves playing, he loves practicing and I think that's contagious."

On handling adversity: Rhule said you need to "lean into it" when things don't go well. As for Raiola, "His maturity has allowed him to do that, and I think it's what makes him viable and ready to play as a freshman."

More on adversity and frustration: "So many quarterbacks, you look at them, they're phenoms. Some of them don't have a bad day 'til they get drafted and all of a sudden they're a bust as a first-round draft pick and everybody's like, 'How did that happen?' Well, maybe they didn't know how to handle frustration, maybe they didn't know how to handle the hard."

On the possibility of starting a freshman QB: "If he goes out there in game one, he'll be ready." But "you have to be willing to ride the highs and lows" with a freshman so he's not "playing afraid." Rhule had good things to say about all three quarterbacks and said he has confidence in all of them.

On turnovers: Rhule said he wants an explosive offense even though that could lead to some turnovers. He just doesn't want to be turning it over in the befuddling ways the offense did last season.

Watch the full discussion below.

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