3 backup plans for Nebraska if Matt Rhule misses on Dylan Raiola

Matt Rhule might not have enough corn-magic to land Dylan Raiola for Nebraska football, so where would the Huskers turn for the future at QB?

There are a lot of reasons to believe that Matt Rhule can help return Nebraska football to its former glory. One of those reasons, however, might not be Dylan Raiola suiting up for the Cornhuskers.

Whenever Raiola, the son of Nebraska legend Dominic Raiola, shockingly decommitted last winter from Ohio State, the possibility of the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2024 recruiting class — a quarterback, no less — coming to Lincoln had Husker nation buzzing. There seems to have been real interest from the 5-star quarterback too.

The way things are trending, though, it does appear that Dylan Raiola will ultimately end up at Georgia, though that is not yet official. That would certainly be a blow to Nebraska and Rhule as they’d hoped Raiola would be the cornerstone of the 2024 recruiting class and the rebuild in the program.

But rather than holding onto the hope that Raiola will end up with the Huskers, what about the contingency plan? What happens if the QB indeed commits to Georgia, what then does Nebraska football do about the future at quarterback?

Let’s take a look at the backup plans in play for Cornhuskers and Matt Rhule.

Nebraska football: 3 Dylan Raiola backup plans for Matt Rhule if QB commits to Georgia

Matt Rhule could try to flip in-state Daniel Kaelin to Nebraska for 2024

As of right now, 3-star quarterback Daniel Kaelin is committed to Missouri. But there’s a chance that a big reason for that is the fact that Nebraska football has been so singularly focused on Dylan Raiola and not wanting to spoil any chance of landing the No. 1 overall recruit that they simply haven’t been in on Kaelin…yet.

With that being said, Kaelin is the No. 3 recruit in the 2024 class from in-state for the Huskers. As Rhule needs to put a heavy emphasis on keeping the best players in the state at home to play in Lincoln, that could be a key factor if the program is forced to pivot away from Raiola.

Kaelin obviously doesn’t have the high-end talent that Raiola does, but he checks the boxes of a player who could be a solid starter for Nebraska football which, frankly, isn’t something that the program has had consistently over the past several years. He has a good-not-great arm, is quite accurate, and could be a riser with another high school season as the starter at Bellevue West.

It would certainly take some leg work by Rhule and his staff to get Kaelin to flip from his commitment to Missouri but, if the Huskers are forced to look somewhere other than Raiola for answers at quarterback, Kaelin is sitting in their backyard and should be a prime target as a backup plan.