LINCOLN — One year later, it’s striking to revisit the rankings.

Of On3’s top 10 quarterbacks in the 2024 recruiting class, three have already transferred. Another at Michigan hasn’t yet left, but must contend with an incoming five-star. Four more, backups for College Football Playoff teams Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State and Georgia, are waiting their turn.

That leaves two — Florida’s DJ Lagway and Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola — as five-star quarterbacks asked to lead their teams this season.

Lagway was pressed into service by a starter’s injury. Raiola was QB1 the minute he flipped his commitment from Georgia to NU.

Yes, he had to beat Heinrich Haarberg for the job last spring. He did so and assumed the reins of a Husker attack that, by season’s end, had an entirely different offensive coordinator.

As NU took a journey in 2024 and the offense rode the roller coaster, Raiola’s hand was often the steadiest. He set a Husker freshman record for passing yards (2,819), logged more snaps than any Nebraska QB since Tommy Armstrong in 2015 and led NU to its first bowl game and winning season since 2016.

And while it was logical to focus on the pretty throws, especially on intermediate routes, Raiola perhaps impressed his elders most with his grasp of the game.

“Bright young man,” said Dana Holgorsen, who took over NU’s play-calling duties in November. “How is this kid a freshman? How could he process all this information as a freshman? He knows the plays, he knows the offense, he knows how to communicate it to the players.”

And to media.

Raiola appeared weekly before and after games to discuss his own play and the team’s performance. He navigated Nebraska’s change at coordinator — “not a lot of gray area, which is needed,” he said of Holgorsen — and the offense's struggles to play pitch and catch against pressure man coverage.

“Our guys run tremendous routes,” Raiola said. “They get open and the ball placement is definitely something where they can catch and run and run away from guys. That’s a focus.”

Raiola offered that thought before what turned out to be his strongest game — Wisconsin. He completed 74% of his passes for 293 yards and a touchdown in a 44-25 win over the Badgers that clinched the bowl berth.

The son of Husker All-America center Dominic Raiola and the nephew of offensive line coach Donovan Raiola, Dylan had some freshman bumps, too.

He threw three interceptions in a 56-7 loss at Indiana. He completed 48% and 52% of his passes against Rutgers and UCLA, respectively. By choosing Nebraska, a school that hadn’t made a bowl since 2016 and lacked five-star talent at receiver, running back and tackle, Raiola embraced a rebuilding project.

It ended with Raiola taking a lap of joy around Yankee Stadium after Nebraska’s 20-15 win in the Pinstripe Bowl.

“One of the things I told Dylan was, hey, you can go some places where the team at the present moment is significantly better than all the teams around them, and then you're going to have to maybe once a year or twice a year make a throw to win a game,” coach Matt Rhule said after the Pinstripe Bowl. “And then you're going to get drafted by probably the worst team in the NFL, and they're going to say, 'Hey, put every game on your back.'”

A lot of the quarterbacks who pick the top programs don’t know how to do that, was Rhule’s point. The NU coach noted that Patrick Mahomes, who has won three Super Bowls for the Kansas City Chiefs, had to carry his Texas Tech team in college.

And while Rhule didn’t mention them, the same was true of the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen (Wyoming) and Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson (Louisville).

“So Dylan has had those opportunities this year,” Rhule said. “Dylan, ‘For us to have a chance, you're going to have to play well.’”

In that final game, Raiola had his ups — a gorgeous throw to Jahmal Banks on a go route and a well-timed toss to Emmett Johnson for a score — and a few mishaps. He also had for the first time in 2024 the kind of game-sealing drive that snuffs out opponent comebacks.

With NU leading Boston College in the final minutes, Raiola hit a key pass to tight end Thomas Fidone. Then against the structure of the play, pulled a ball on a zone read and ran up field. He slid and took a shot to the helmet. BC got flagged for a personal foul and Raiola got into the defender’s face.

Seasoned viewers of Husker football recall a similar play in 1992, when Tommie Frazier jawed with a Colorado defender during a 52-7 rout. Neither Frazier nor Raiola was backing down.

“He tried to take me out, which is why I came up and kind of reacted,” Raiola said. “But I guess it was just kind of the fire in me, kind of game's on the line, I lay it on the line for my team.”

Raiola, the “bright young man,” knew he wasn’t going to start a fight. Besides, his linemen were on the way to stand up for their quarterback.

Standout

Dylan Raiola: Accept no substitutes because, aside from one late drive against UCLA, Raiola didn’t. He sustained a serious shot to his back but played two weeks later and ultimately had one the highest completion rates (67.1%) in school history. He ranked third in the Big Ten in pass attempts, which speaks to how much Nebraska asked of him.

Struggles

Two areas of improvement headed into 2025: More touchdown passes and a higher yards-per-attempt average.

Raiola threw just 13 TDs last season, for a touchdown rate of 3.1%. Now it’s true that Nebraska preferred power football inside the opponent’s 5 — the Huskers had 91 red zone runs to 65 Raiola passes — but Illinois’ Luke Altmyer (6.3%) doubled Raiola’s TD rate.

He also averaged 6.9 yards per attempt. A good figure is 8.0, and that’ll likely come with more big pass plays — which fell off a cliff after the first five games — and the offense’s collective understanding of Holgorsen’s offense.

Snap Counts

Sticking around

See You Later

Stepping Up

It’s Raiola’s team and Raiola’s time. He’ll get paid an impressive sum via NIL and revenue-sharing dollars to take Nebraska through Year 3 of Matt Rhule era. He’ll need help at offensive tackle and again at receiver — where NU will rely heavily on two transfers — but he should make some offseason gains in strength and conditioning and overall leadership of the team.

Soon On Campus

With Haarberg making the full-time switch to tight end, the Huskers will have a new backup quarterback. It could be Gramstad but it’s more likely to be either Purdue transfer Marcos Davila, a former four-star recruit who redshirted for the Boilermakers, or incoming freshman TJ Lateef, who threw 22 touchdowns at Orange (California) Lutheran High School as a senior.

Davila is a 6-foot-3, 235-pound pocket passer who plays the game like Raiola. Lateef — listed at 6-2, 190, though he may not be that tall — can scamper and does his best work outside of the pocket. Lateef is an accurate passer who could be an intrigue with two spring camps of development.