Tad Stryker: Pipeline Potential for Nebraska Football

Matt Rhule and the Raiolas’ pursuit of the nation's top offensive lineman is a refreshing development

David Sanders Jr visit / Tad Stryker

The Raiola Effect is real, but no more real than Husker Nation’s desire to rebuild the Pipeline.

Hundreds of red-clad fans seemed to have both in mind when they converged on the brand-new Osborne Legacy Complex late the afternoon of Friday, July 26.

The gathering was a response to a tweet sent less than 24 hours earlier by freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola asking Husker fans to “Welcome David Sanders HOME to Lincoln.”

So when an SUV limousine appropriately monsterous enough to comfortably seat a 6-foot-6, 290-pounder rated as the best offensive tackle in the 2025 recruiting class — and his family — slowly pulled up east of Memorial Stadium, he stepped out to applause and chants of “Go Big Red!”

It was a spontaneous and impressive reception for the five-star prospect from Charlotte, North Carolina, but certainly not an overwhelming turnout on a hot, humid workday afternoon. If the programs battling NU for Sanders’ services —Tennessee, Ohio State and Georgia — want to paint Nebraska as a program with overperforming fans and an underperforming team, they could legitimately point to a past decade of game results as long as your arm, but this particular event would not be the occasion to use. If the Huskers get lucky, Mom Sanders will read the crowd as warm and sincere.

Matt Rhule and his 2024 Huskers have a season of work ahead to start chipping away at that narrative. Meanwhile, Rhule and his staff are building their 2025 class, and Sanders likely would be the standout of the bunch should he decide to sign with the Big Red in December. Then again, that honor could go to another five-star tackle, 6-7, 300-pound Jackson Cantwell of Nixa, Missouri.

It’s high time that Nebraska got excited about its offensive line again, and if nothing else, this day awoke memories of numerous Husker Outland and Lombardi trophy winners whose names and highlights were flashing on the huge video screen visible through the glass facade of the Osborne Legacy Complex as the Sanders entourage pulled up. Will Nebraska sign another Dave Rimington, Will Shields, Toniu Fonoti or Zach Wiegert soon?

Dylan Raiola hopes so; it would certainly help his own cause, and his peer recruiting efforts may be the biggest reason the Huskers are even in the conversation for players like Sanders and Cantwell.

Don’t discount Justin St. Clair in the recruitment of Cantwell, a track athlete who’s elite in his specialty event, the shot put, as was his mother, the former Teri Steer of Crete. St. Clair just led his NU men’s track and field team to a second consecutive Big Ten outdoor championship and is among the best weights coaches in the nation. His collaboration with Rhule on bringing in a prime two-sport athlete could make the difference, because Nebraska has already proven it will let its football players double up in another sport if the talent is there.

Rhule, offensive line coach Donovan Raiola and much of his staff were on hand to shake hands and pose for photos as they waited for the Sanders entourage to arrive. Rhule, along with coach and quarterback Raiola, are making headway on fixing the worst problem of that underperforming decade: an o-line that was pillow-soft under Mike Riley and skittishly penalty-prone under Scott Frost.

Rhule is working hard to upgrade the o-line. He landed an solid batch in his 2024 class, highlighted by Grant Brix and Preston Taumua.

In the 2025 class, OT Shawn Hammerbeck of Winner, South Dakota, and interior lineman Houston Kaahaaina-Torres of Honolulu have already verbally committed, and the Rhule/Raiola conglomerate is in hot pursuit of Cantwell, who has offers from Georgia, Alabama, LSU and Florida among others, although Cantwell may be as interested in his home state Missouri Tigers as any other SEC school.

While it’s refreshing just to see the Huskers on the short list of multiple top o-line prospects this late in the cycle, closing on either Sanders or Cantwell would signal an unmistakably big step toward making Husker fans’ feverish Pipeline restoration dreams a reality.