This Sentell’s Intel rep is about 5-star Dylan Raiola and Georgia and Nebraska. All of that.
Whew.
I wanted to take a little time last night and this morning before putting a lot of this together. The journalistic charge is always to be right and not trample through the door haphazardly on a big story.
Make no mistake. This Dylan Raiola and Nebraska stuff is a a very big story.
The news cycle has been brisk over the last 20 hours considering the numerous reports and headlines linking 5-star Georgia football QB commitment Dylan Raiola to Nebraska.
That’s where his father was an All-American. That’s where his uncle is the offensive line coach. That’s a school he was also closely considering after he decommitted just over a year ago from Ohio State.
Something recently happened here. Clearly.
He will visit Nebraska this weekend. He also at this time remains committed to the University of Georgia. That’s what I have been told as recently as this morning.
The term “committed” carries a different interpretation these days. Maybe the term “most likely to” is the best clarifier now in this world of name, image and likeness (NIL) serving as inducements to recruiting decisions.
What’s going on with Raiola? There are theories and realities.
Is it Carson Beck’s return? Is it something else? Is it the hyped-up “Buford curse” rearing its head again?
My information sources don’t point to any of those things. I don’t see NIL as a factor because Raiola’s father, Dominic, played 14 years in the NFL with the Detroit Lions.
Dylan has had a college fund since the day he was born. That fund has grown over the last 18 or so years. That’s some organic family NIL.
I’m told this will come down to what Dylan wants to do. He’ll see Nebraska this weekend one more time. Yet that’s also the weekend that he was supposed to go through his first practices at Georgia.
Maybe his mind will change. Maybe it already leans that way. But for now, the simple fact is he’s still committed to Georgia.
There’s a rush to interpret a few clarifiers and see an outcome brewing and point to a future change. But for right now, that hasn’t changed. That’s what I’ve been told regarding that matter.
Yet some smart and plugged-in folks are projecting what will happen. They look at all the signs on the road and see that the Raiola commitment is in jeopardy.
It is not out of bounds to make that projection.
Trying to make sense of a potential Dylan Raiola flip to Nebraska
Nebraska has the nation’s No. 24 recruiting class for 2024. That’s without Raiola. Georgia has the nation’s top-ranked group with Raiola. It will still have the top-rated class without him.
Raiola just finished a season at Buford where he made the best of significant protection issues. Georgia’s offensive line class runs six-deep. It is the best in the nation for any program.
He’s told me a few times this season he might not see the ‘Dawgs lose as few as two or three games during his time in Athens. He was that excited about his future in the red and black.
The Cornhuskers have five OL commits in their class, but there is a stark dropoff from that one compared to the one assembled for the next team at UGA. There are at most two or three Cornhusker OLs that have the college potential projection the entire six-man group in Athens will have.
There’s only one 4-star OL in the Nebraska class. Grant Brix (No. 80 overall) is also the only Nebraska OL pledge who is taller than the 6-foot-5 mark. Everyone in the UGA line class is at least that big, including a couple that are two or three inches taller.
If this all goes down, then this line feels appropriate: This is choosing massive corn stalks over California Redwoods.
There are 21 prospects with a 3-star rating in the Nebraska class. There are eight 3-star commits in the UGA class.
If Raiola now desires to play elsewhere given that head-to-head comparison, then something happened here.
It goes beyond those family ties and that familiarity with Nebraska.
Georgia football recruiting: What if Dylan Raiola leaves the UGA class?
Raiola had been the single most involved texter and player recruiter for the 2024 class. That was even before he officially went public with the ‘Dawgs. The family has been looking to his time in Athens for a while now.
That move from Arizona to Georgia to spend his senior year playing for Buford High signifies that. We just don’t see that sort of a move in college recruiting. That, in many ways, stood as something more concrete than any teenager’s verbal pledge. The family moved over here not just for his senior season, but to be able to follow his next three or four years in Athens.
The plans were terra firma to move to Athens this weekend to start bowl practice. To focus on competing for the job at Georgia. He wasn’t going to go to any All-American Game. That took away from that goal of being the quarterback at UGA.
Coaches talk about the phrase “sudden change” in football as game wreckers. The moment in time my phone started pinging about the Raiola buzz was a new benchmark “sudden change” moment in covering Georgia football recruiting.
Reporters and sources covering multiple beats and teams reached out, including the Ohio State beat with a frank “told you so” message they felt needed to be delivered. They went through this a year ago, they said.
That was their “sudden change” a year ago covering a quarterback with a big smile, a kind heart and talent that could be labeled as generational.
The fact that Raiola will even take a visit to Nebraska shows something splintered recently with the ‘Dawgs. Raiola is no longer stone-cold convinced his best opportunity in college lies in Athens.
This business of covering the shifting emotions and thought streams of impressionable teenagers has always been wild. But this resets that paradigm. We’ve never seen parents move across the country like this to watch their son play for UGA only to then see him sign somewhere else.
This feels like “Boom” deciding his first fall as the live mascot in Athens was too much. Too many pictures and head rubs. Now he wants to rep Yale.
It is not quite that. But it is in the zip code because of how plugged in Raiola was to UGA.
Raiola has been by far the most active member of the annual group chat commitment text thread.
“He texts a lot,” All-American OT commitment Daniel Calhoun said on December 1. “Almost every day.”
The 5-star QB was the one that two different sets of fellow commits in the 2024 class came to see on Friday nights at Buford. That’s when they were coming in for off-week gameday UGA visits. We never saw that before covering UGA recruiting.
Relationships had been forged. They wanted to support Raiola.
Raiola had been the one pointing to Georgia still having more than a puncher’s chance to flip 5-star FSU commitment (and his Buford teammate) KJ Bolden from Florida State. He’d been saying that for months with a certain look in his eye all the while.
There are reports out there of him now chatting and texting with Nebraska commitments recently.
So what happens to the class if Raiola does sign with the Cornhuskers? I have a few thoughts backed by real-time reporting about what the ripple effects of that might be.
- Will the program that won back-to-back national championships with a former walk-on and a junior college transfer worry about this much? I don’t think so. I believe the staff in Athens seeks to sign players who want to be ‘Dawgs more than anything else. Not just a prime opportunity and a place on the top of the mountain of big-time college football.
- The biggest ripple effect of a Raiola flip will be the potential Georgia class ranking. The ‘Dawgs will lose a 5-star commit and one of their three top 10 overall recruits in this class. They had never signed three prospects ranked among the nation’s top 10 recruits before in Kirby Smart’s time in Athens. Smart’s classes have been incredible, but they’d never done that before.
- Their 247Sports Team Composite rating will fall from an approximate 315 value to a 310 score. That still places it ahead of Ohio State (298.54) but it will make the class vulnerable to being surpassed by a late close from that program or FSU or Alabama. That No. 1 final class ranking becomes in doubt, but I’ve always considered that to be a fickle thing. Especially with the ‘Dawgs still expected to sign roughly 18 percent of the nation’s top 200 overall recruits.
- If Raiola does make the flip, I feel it will organically make Ryan Puglisi the most popular commitment in this class. I’d expect Pug to hear Rodrigo Blankenship-sized roars from the Sanford Stadium crowd for G-Day next April. That’s because of who he is and what he has always been. The definition of solid. He will be seen as the QB who always wanted to be a ‘Dawg. He committed before Raiola and was always ten toes down after the nation’s No. 1 QB committed to the ‘Dawgs. That’s rare. That’s special.
- There’s a life lesson there for all of us. The flash of a 5-star and a No. 1 overall prospect with NFL bloodlines and a DGD “Godfather” and “Uncle Matthew” in former UGA great Matthew Stafford makes for irresistible eye candy combined with plus-arm talent.
- Puglisi stayed the course. Never changing. Never wavering. He wants to be a ‘Dawg no matter what. He graduated last night from Avon Old Farms and will be in Athens on December 16 for those first bowl practices.
- Lest we all forget, he is also an Elite 11 QB and a top 10 QB prospect for the 2024 class.
- I feel the recruit most likely to be affected by Raiola to Nebraska would be 4-star WR Nitro Tuggle. Tuggle wants to play with an elite triggerman. Every receiver does. He’s also committed to UGA, but he’s planning an official visit to LSU this weekend. If we’re giving that recruitment an honest read, his status has been shaky over the last few months.
- The name a lot of folks reached out about first was 4-star TE Jaden Reddell. I think the link between Raiola and Reddell with that recruitment was overstated in the mainstream media and even in smaller circles.
- I also think that the link between Reddell and Puglisi has been understated. The Reddell family believes firmly in his future in Athens. They also believe in the definition that all of our Pappaws and Mamaws and Nannys and Poppys still have for the word “commitment” in the year 2023.
- The two 5-star commits in Texas will not waver because of the Raiola news. Even though they both came out to visit Raiola for one of his Buford games. 5-star LB Justin Williams and 5-star DL Joseph Jonah-Ajonye graduated last night in Texas. They will report to Athens on Friday for those bowl practices.
- I remember Joseph-Ajonye telling me how Raiola was recruiting him practically every day to be a ‘Dawg over the spring and summer. That’s when he didn’t have to. The roots for the Joseph-Ajonye family in Athens run very deep.
- There is a strong connection between Raiola and 4-star Texas OT Michael Uini. He also came out to see Raiola before a game this fall. Those two also had the pending distinction of being the first Polynesian players in Athens since LB Kawika Mitchell was a Bulldog for a brief redshirt season more than a generation ago. Yet given the late stage of the recruiting game here, I feel Uini has grown far too comfortable with being a “Dawg for anything there to change.
- There might be some wavering, but the words of what one parent said to me last night can speak for most of what I’ve heard so far with checking in and reading the pulse of almost the entire class. “Kirby Smart is the center here,” that 5-star parent said. “He’s the cog. He set the tone for the culture. Everything in Athens we love and want to be a part of revolves around Kirby.”
That won’t change. 5-star QBs or no 5-star QB. Raiola is an immense talent and he will play great football on Saturdays.
But Smart remains the face of the Georgia football program.
That’s a good way to end this initial post on the matter. We’ll have more on all of it later today.
SENTELL'S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
