Media Predictions for Nebraska 2026 Football Season

[Lorewarn]

He never made that second year leap you always hear about where the game starts to slow down for QBs and they can process things faster.

Pretty much every single number disagrees with you:




It's wild how far folks are able to go in rationalizing how probably the best thrower of the football in school history was just mid.

 

[Dogs In A Pile]

Maybe abysmal was a bit overstated but the facts are NU was:

#112 in the nation with 33 sacks allowed in 2025. The leading schools were in the single digits. But there were 22 teams below us. So not too bad I guess.

 

[Toe]

Pretty much every single number disagrees with you:

View attachment 23857

It's wild how far folks are able to go in rationalizing how probably the best thrower of the football in school history was just mid.

Now post the stats on how long he held on to the ball before throwing, or how many times he failed to throw it entirely.

 

[Lorewarn]

Now post the stats on how long he held on to the ball before throwing, or how many times he failed to throw it entirely.

I don't know where to find those stats but if you do I'd be happy to see them (of course, we'd need to compare year to year and also look at the concepts, the personnel, etc.) This is the closest I can find, which shows improvement in success across the board in passing concepts, especially if you look at the first half of the season:

But I can link in depth breakdowns like this one that definitively show Dylan isn't particularly to blame.

Or this one that concludes that the line is the biggeset culprit and Dylan didn't really have a chance on 80%+ of the sacks he took.

Or this huge one which shows all sorts of things such as:

• Our offense got drastically worth with Dylan out

• Dylan running RPO was one of the biggest strengths of the offense and the best we'd been in some time

• Our plays with more protection/pass blockers were pretty disastrous

• "I graded Raiola’s accuracy and timing a little worse this season but his decision making much better — that’s been, I think, well established in other data I charted this year, too. I thought he operated with much sharper decisions, and, in quick game in particular, got the ball to the correct receiver fast on most plays. He obviously had some ugly reps of holding the ball too long at various points in the season, but those were largely a handful of dropbacks in each game and came on deeper passing concepts where he was attempting to make a big play. I thought — and the data says — he displayed much-improved ability to get rid of the ball on most of his plays, with a few lapses per game."

Or you could watch the Michigan game and see how despite having multiple players closing in on him immediately he was still evading insane pressure and making plays, or watch the USC game and see how he was quick and decisive with the ball as long as he had a mediocre amount of time and someone actually open.

 

[Toe]

And as for what I was saying about Dylan's inability to throw anything but short-range darts, here's how he compares to Colandrea, a pair of true freshman B1G starting QBs (ie guys who haven't had a chance to make a second-year advancement like Dylan), and some actual top B1G QBs:




Even if you wanna call it 8.5 games played since Dylan went out in the USC game, it doesn't really change the picture. And the other B1G QBs ultimately faced tougher schedules - unlike Dylan, they played full conference schedules, and all but Mailk Washington played postseason games.

And if you wanna try blaming our WRs, stop kidding yourself. Key went from fourteen receptions over 20 yards last year in the SEC to just four this year - two of which were against HCU and one thrown by Lateef. He didn't just suddenly forget how to get open when he got here. Same goes for our other guys.

 

[Husker_In_WI]

And as for what I was saying about Dylan's inability to throw anything but short-range darts, here's how he compares to Colandrea, a pair of true freshman B1G starting QBs (ie guys who haven't had a chance to make a second-year advancement like Dylan), and some actual top B1G QBs:


View attachment 23859

Even if you wanna call it 8.5 games played since Dylan went out in the USC game, it doesn't really change the picture. And the other B1G QBs ultimately faced tougher schedules - unlike Dylan, they played full conference schedules, and all but Mailk Washington played postseason games.

And if you wanna try blaming our WRs, stop kidding yourself. Key went from fourteen receptions over 20 yards last year in the SEC to just four this year - two of which were against HCU and one thrown by Lateef. He didn't just suddenly forget how to get open when he got here. Same goes for our other guys.

There's blame to go around, but I'd put the most on the OL. I agree Raiola shares it, he definitely liked low-risk throws and so even his deep shots tended to be the RPO/check to the outside receiver running a go when the safeties crept up. Those had a very low success rate, sometimes due to bad throws and sometimes due to receivers (Hunter in particular) dropping them. But we essentially stopped running true downfield passing plays after Minnesota. Some of that is because the short game and RPOs were working, but a lot was because we couldn't protect the QB long enough to bother trying. Raiola absolutely stumbled into several sacks he didn't need to take, but pass protection was also undoubtedly the weakest piece of our offense last year.

 

[Lorewarn]

And if you wanna try blaming our WRs, stop kidding yourself. Key went from fourteen receptions over 20 yards last year in the SEC to just four this year - two of which were against HCU and one thrown by Lateef. He didn't just suddenly forget how to get open when he got here. Same goes for our other guys.

Dane Key was quite unimpressive in his time here, and there's a lot of potential reasons why, ranging from SEC defenses actually being pretty piss poor overall to our staff being pretty trash at development (there is a lot of commentary and analysis about how our offense had very little cohesion or in depth adjustments and strategy, with poor schemes and concepts), but I don't see how this has anything to do with Dylan.

He gave him plenty of balls. Plenty of them were catchable in a "go up and get it" one on one matchup, and Dane rarely ever won any of them.

 

[The Maudfather]

Pretty much every single number disagrees with you:

View attachment 23857


It's wild how far folks are able to go in rationalizing how probably the best thrower of the football in school history was just mid.

The numbers may have improved a bit from his freshman year, on paper, but his sophomore year never really passed the eye test. I'd also add that some of those numbers are really being propped up by a lot screens and passes right around the LOS. I'd be really interested in what the advanced stats have to say - his ADOT had to be insanely low.

He didn't make the jump that you'd expect out of a 5 star, top HS QB coming out. Didn't really seem to be very concerned with being in shape either.

 

[The Maudfather]

And as for what I was saying about Dylan's inability to throw anything but short-range darts, here's how he compares to Colandrea, a pair of true freshman B1G starting QBs (ie guys who haven't had a chance to make a second-year advancement like Dylan), and some actual top B1G QBs:


View attachment 23859

Even if you wanna call it 8.5 games played since Dylan went out in the USC game, it doesn't really change the picture. And the other B1G QBs ultimately faced tougher schedules - unlike Dylan, they played full conference schedules, and all but Mailk Washington played postseason games.

And if you wanna try blaming our WRs, stop kidding yourself. Key went from fourteen receptions over 20 yards last year in the SEC to just four this year - two of which were against HCU and one thrown by Lateef. He didn't just suddenly forget how to get open when he got here. Same goes for our other guys.

These numbers really tell the story.

 

[The Maudfather]

I don't know where to find those stats but if you do I'd be happy to see them (of course, we'd need to compare year to year and also look at the concepts, the personnel, etc.) This is the closest I can find, which shows improvement in success across the board in passing concepts, especially if you look at the first half of the season:

But I can link in depth breakdowns like this one that definitively show Dylan isn't particularly to blame.

Or this one that concludes that the line is the biggeset culprit and Dylan didn't really have a chance on 80%+ of the sacks he took.

Or this huge one which shows all sorts of things such as:

• Our offense got drastically worth with Dylan out

• Dylan running RPO was one of the biggest strengths of the offense and the best we'd been in some time

• Our plays with more protection/pass blockers were pretty disastrous

• "I graded Raiola’s accuracy and timing a little worse this season but his decision making much better — that’s been, I think, well established in other data I charted this year, too. I thought he operated with much sharper decisions, and, in quick game in particular, got the ball to the correct receiver fast on most plays. He obviously had some ugly reps of holding the ball too long at various points in the season, but those were largely a handful of dropbacks in each game and came on deeper passing concepts where he was attempting to make a big play. I thought — and the data says — he displayed much-improved ability to get rid of the ball on most of his plays, with a few lapses per game."

Or you could watch the Michigan game and see how despite having multiple players closing in on him immediately he was still evading insane pressure and making plays, or watch the USC game and see how he was quick and decisive with the ball as long as he had a mediocre amount of time and someone actually open.

The offense did get drastically worse without Dylan. He gave the team the best chance to win.

Dylan is also not very good.

Both things can be true.

 

[Lorewarn]

The numbers may have improved a bit from his freshman year, on paper, but his sophomore year never really passed the eye test. I'd also add that some of those numbers are really being propped up by a lot screens and passes right around the LOS. I'd be really interested in what the advanced stats have to say - his ADOT had to be insanely low.

He didn't make the jump that you'd expect out of a 5 star, top HS QB coming out. Didn't really seem to be very concerned with being in shape either.

The eye test is useful until it isn't. A lot of people were griping about Dylan's quick release dink and dunk game right out the gate last year, taking what the defense gave him, and then they started griping about the exact opposite.

He didn't make the jump that you'd expect out of a 5 star, top HS QB coming out. Didn't really seem to be very concerned with being in shape either.

The first part depends. He didn't make the jump to elite, record breaking, award contention generational player on its own, and understanding a lot of people put that expectation on him, then yeah, he fell short of being legendary and committed the sin of just being pretty damn good. But plenty of us have seen plenty of five star quarterbacks be good to really good but not great or legendary, so at least speaking personally I thought he was a great player for us and would be considered an elite player if he was playing at a school with elite protection and elite receivers and an elite defense.

"Didn't really seem to be very concerned with being in shape either" is a weird take to hear, considering the significant amount of media attention that was given to his efforts to lose weight and get faster last offseason.

At the end of the day per all the reports from his coaches and peers this kid was a driven, consummate teammate who battled like hell, performed very well and was fully in for two years that pulled us out of the basement into mediocrity. Hard for me to hate him for it, or try to paint him as anything other than what I think he is which is a just-less-than-generational talent who couldn't showcase that properly because we do not have the staff or talent.

 

[Toe]

In the end, any way you slice it our offense was mediocre in pretty much every respect last year. #82 total offense, #59 scoring offense, #68 passing offense, #80 rushing offense (sorry, Emmett fanboys!).

None of it was good enough.

 

[Gorillahawk]

DR was and still is a very talented QB. Unfortunately for him and the NU team as a whole he's not the type of QB who will take a team from mediocre to great based on his skill set. He is the kind of QB with a great arm that if he has protection will tear a defense to shreds imo, however he NEEDS to have a really good oline in front of him to reach his potential because he's not super mobile. The offensive line last year really struggled in the pass blocking game and our WRs didn't excel at getting open immediately or catching a high percentage of highly contested balls. I think DR would be best in a pro style offense on a team that is a QB away from being elite, NU wasn't that. DR was a big time recruit for NU but in the end he wasn't what the team needed to take that leap forward, and until the oline becomes a solid unit, the type of QB he is will not be successful at NU. We need a mobile guy who can buy time, is a threat with his legs, and can extend the play to allow guys to work open in order for the offense right now to be successful.

 

[Undone]

From that Athlon article:

“Matt Rhule has some great aspects. He can make you run through a wall, but there’s just always so much turnover with his staff. I know that it’s a tough environment for those coaches to be in. Rhule makes it like that on purpose because he doesn’t want you to get comfortable. I don’t want to say his model isn’t going to work, but I don’t know.”

That is really accurate. I don’t know about the “he wants it that way” part.

But staff turnover - or just his staff in general - is Rhule’s #1 problem in this rebuild.

 

[Toe]

I don’t know about the “he wants it that way” part.

The 'he wants it that way' part is almost certainly BS.