We begin with the first meeting last October, and the eyes. May as well have been a neon billboard screaming for attention.
“He was worn out. A little beat up, tired,” Dana Holgorsen says of his first meeting with Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola. “His head was spinning.”
This felt all but inevitable with Raiola. Just a matter of when, and who would pick up the pieces when it broke.
That someone was Holgorsen, who fittingly was in the process of reorganizing his own unraveling as – get this – a defensive analyst at Nebraska. One of college football’s elite offensive minds and a year removed as head coach at Houston, Holgorsen was breaking down defensive game film last season for Cornhuskers coach Matt Rhule when hope in Lincoln began to look a whole lot like the ugly that got Rhule hired in the first place.
Their paths converged in one desperate bye week, after Rhule demoted offensive coordinator and play caller Marcus Satterfield. The coach whose program was spinning its wheels in his second season, and the heralded freshman quarterback who finally hit the wall.
And Holgorsen, whose quarterbacks have averaged 31 touchdown passes a season since 2016.
“We just sat there and talked about everything,” Holgorsen said. “Ten days later, I’m calling plays in the Coliseum at USC. It elevated pretty quickly. It was like learning Japanese in a month.”
Fast forward to this summer, and there was Raiola representing Nebraska at Big Ten media days in Las Vegas. Dressed sharply in a black suit with red piping, a pattern of playing cards on the satin lining of his coat.
As smooth as the night is long on The Strip.
“I’ve never felt more comfortable playing football than I do right now,” Raiola said.
It has been a long road, made more difficult by what he saw coming all along, what he couldn’t see — and frankly, some difficulty of his own making. He knew what he was walking into at Nebraska, and it wasn’t just the idea of rebuilding a lost national power.
His name was All-America royalty at Nebraska (his dad and uncle starred for the Huskers), and he played hard to get for nearly two years of high school hype before finally signing. He committed to Ohio State, then switched Georgia, and then made Rhule sweat it out before finally committing to Nebraska two days before national signing day.
And the next thing you know, Nebraska wins five of six to begin his freshman season — before losing three in a row and staring at another season of failing to simply qualify for a bowl game. Imagine that, one of the greatest dynasties in college football history in the 1990s, working on an eighth consecutive season of failing to win six lousy games.
The Huskers eventually got bowl eligible, and a seventh win with a Pinstripe Bowl victory. But the enormity of that weight, the pressure of lifting a program – the hopes of a state – from that abyss, hasn’t subsided.
“This is what I wanted,” Raiola said. “It’s a privilege to be in this situation.”
So he got in better shape in the offseason, dropped his body fat percentage and increased strength and mobility. And he dove into all things Holgorsen, knowing full well what his quarterbacks have accomplished in the past.
Graham Harrell, Case Keenum, Geno Smith, Will Grier, Clayton Tune. A Who’s Who of mega seasons over the 20 years of college football.
More to the point: four of those quarterbacks had breakout seasons in their second full season as starters. Keenum had 44 touchdown passes, Smith had 42, Grier had 37 and Tune had 30.
Raiola had 13 touchdown passes in 2024.
But get this: Holgorsen says Raiola’s football IQ is better than any of his previous quarterbacks.
“He’s intelligent and highly competitive,” Holgorsen said. “He understands run checks and coverages, and fronts and protections, better than anyone I’ve been around. One hundred percent, it’s not even close.”
It’s not difficult to see where this is headed, where happenstance arrived and three paths met and the symmetry is undeniable. Rhule needs Raiola, who needs Holgorsen, who needs Nebraska.
Raiola was talking about the College Football Playoff last month, and why couldn’t Nebraska expect to be there? Why wouldn’t that be the goal?
Rhule added some key pieces from the transfer portal to energize the offense, and more than anything, he kept both Raiola and Holgorsen. It wasn’t long after Nebraska beat Boston College for its first bowl win since 2015, that vultures began circling ― for both Raiola and Holgorsen.
Rhule told Holgorsen he needed a decision quickly, and Holgorsen found himself staring at Raiola once again.
“I said are you staying? Because if you are, I am,” Holgorsen said. “He said he was, and we’ve been full-go since.”
Want to know how committed Holgorsen is to Nebraska and Raiola? When he started calling plays last November, Holgorsen used the existing offense and terminology — instead of his wildly successful system based on Mike Leach’s Air Raid.
Instead of doing a complete install this offseason, he kept Satterfield’s offense and verbiage, and added some of his Air Raid principles. Better for one guy to learn a new system, he says, than half a team.
How a play is called might be different, Holgorsen insists, but what it looks like is always the same. If it looks anything like the second season for previous Holgorsen quarterbacks, it won’t look anything like the last decade of Nebraska football.
And that’s the whole point of it all.
“I know what people are thinking, it’s Nebraska, what have they done,” Raiola said. “We have a chance to change all of that.”
There’s your inevitable. Maybe it’s just a matter of when.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.