{"id":55950,"date":"2023-12-12T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=55950"},"modified":"2023-12-11T20:07:24","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T01:07:24","slug":"merry-flipmas-dylan-raiola-a-husker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2023\/12\/12\/merry-flipmas-dylan-raiola-a-husker\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Flipmas? Dylan Raiola A Husker?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a tough week it’s been for Georgia in college football. First, they suffered a loss to Nick Saban<\/strong> and Alabama in the SEC Championship<\/a>, breaking their impressive 29-game winning streak (a record in the SEC). The loss ended their shot at a spot in the College Football Playoff and dashed their hopes for a chance to go for a third consecutive national championship. Adding to the challenges, ten players, including standouts like Brock Vandagriff<\/strong><\/a> and Mekhi Mews<\/strong><\/a>, entered their names into the transfer portal. And just when Georgia fans thought things couldn’t get any worse, Monday night brought another blow \u2013 247Sports changed their prediction for the No. 1 quarterback and No. 2 player in the class of 2024, Dylan Raiola<\/strong>. The prediction now suggests he might flip his commitment from Georgia<\/a> to Nebraska.<\/p>\n

Dylan Raiola Commitment History<\/h3>\n

Raiola’s commitment to Georgia last May made plenty of headlines. The one-time Ohio State commitment shared that Georgia’s winning culture appealed to him last spring. Georgia faced stiff competition from USC and Nebraska to earn Raiola’s commitment. While, Lincoln Riley<\/strong> will never win or be considered for the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top defensive coordinator, he does a fantastic job with quarterbacks. Riley has three Heisman trophy winners and a Heisman finalist under his watch.<\/p>\n

For Nebraska, it has always been personal for Raiola. His father, Dominic<\/strong>, was a center in the early 2000s before starting a long NFL career. His uncle, Donovan Raiola<\/strong>, is the Husker’s offensive line coach. It was the culture and winning, though, that eventually won out, as he shared after his commitment back in May. “There is always a good vibe in that building, which is very business-like. Kirby says when you walk into that building, everything is geared toward making you a better man and winning.” What’s changed? Well, it starts with comments from Matt Rhule<\/strong> a couple of weeks ago at a press conference.<\/p>\n

Matt Rhule: Follow the Money<\/h3>\n

College football has been transformed by NIL (Name Image and Likeness). Decisions on where to play used to be about playing time and who gave you the best opportunity to get to “The League.” NIL now has thrown another variable into the recruiting and transfer mix. While many deals get lost in speculation and hyperbole, Rhule was asked a few weeks ago about NIL and the going rate for a good quarterback. He stated that “a good quarterback in the portal costs $1 million, $1.5, 2 million” in NIL. There were many jokes on X and message boards that Rhule was challenging his collectives to start fundraising.<\/p>\n

The news over the last 24-48 hours shows that maybe the collectives were paying attention. Nebraska is not only in on Raiola but also may be trying to get Ohio State to transfer Kyle McCord<\/strong> to Lincoln.\u00a0While it would be speculation to think that NIL dollars would be the reason Raiola would flip his commitment, the possibility must be considered. We are in an age of player empowerment, and players can finally find their worth. If Jimmy Sexton<\/strong> can get a raise for his clients who are head coaches by announcing their names as possible candidates for other jobs, why can’t recruits do the same thing? Again, at this time, there is no reason to believe this is the case with Raiola, but it is an exciting possibility to consider. So, what’s next?<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/RaiolaDylan\/status\/1658153736232128513?s=20<\/p>\n

Reading the Social Media Tea Leaves<\/h3>\n

We won’t officially know if Raiola flips his commitment until the early signing day on December 20th or if he updates his social media. A quick look through the quarterback’s social media on X and Instagram shows that the quarterback still seems focused on Georgia. His profile picture is still from his visit to Athens with his Black Bulldog jersey on. Georgia football’s social media handles tag both of his bios. On Instagram, he still pins his commitment post to Georgia on his profile. He also posted encouragement<\/a> to KJ Bolden<\/strong> after he visited with Kirby Smart<\/strong> and Will Muschamp<\/strong> last week. So, at least at the time of publication, Athens still appears to be home for Raiola. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Joshua L. Jones \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a tough week it’s been for Georgia in college football. First, they suffered a loss to Nick Saban and Alabama in the SEC Championship, breaking their impressive 29-game winning streak (a record in the SEC). The loss ended their shot at a spot in the College Football Playoff and dashed their hopes for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":55958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"686","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[9801,9778,9800,65,106,351,1413,511,3060,20],"class_list":["post-55950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sec","tag-dominic-raiola","tag-donovan-raiola","tag-dylan-raiola","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-kirby-smart","tag-matt-rhule","tag-national-signing-day","tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","tag-recruiting","tag-sec"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}