As summer turns to fall and the 2025 season nears, it’s worth remembering that Nebraska has a five-star quarterback on its roster. Dylan Raiola isn’t Georgia’s, Alabama’s, or Ohio State’s QB; he’s Nebraska’s, and now it’s time for him to leave his mark.
Nebraska returns a starting quarterback for the first time since 2021, and while most players seem to make the biggest jump from year one to year two, Raiola’s situation is unique. Dana Holgorsen took over play calling in November, part of one of the most unusual coaching overhauls in college football history. Still, Holgorsen has a track record of producing high-powered offenses led by elite quarterbacks, and as Raiola enters his second year in the system, he could be poised to join that group.
After a quick four-game test run, Raiola and Holgorsen have had time to figure things out. Now, with a full offseason to smooth the edges, the pair is ready to hit the ground running this fall. Months of installing and fine-tuning the new offensive system have given Nebraska a chance to flip the script in 2025.
The concept of a “second-year jump” for a quarterback in the same system isn’t new, and the numbers back it up. What makes Nebraska’s situation unique is that this system comes from a coordinator with a proven track record of producing high-powered offenses at a historically competitive level.
With that in mind, I dug into past quarterbacks in Holgorsen’s offenses, across multiple schools, to compare their year-one and year-two numbers. The goal: to get a realistic idea of what Raiola’s improvement could look like in 2025.
Before Holgorsen arrived at Houston in 2008, Case Keenum was still fighting for the starting quarterback job. He had flashes of potential, but his freshman year was marked by inconsistency and a late-season move into the full-time starting role.
In Holgorsen’s first year calling plays, Keenum’s production exploded. He became the first quarterback in school history to throw for over 5,000 yards, led the nation in total offense, and delivered Houston’s first bowl win in 25 years, all while knocking off two ranked opponents.
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But the real leap came in his second year of Holgorsen’s system. Keenum threw for 5,671 yards, over 600 more than the year before, along with 44 touchdowns and a 70.3% completion rate. While he went undrafted, his performance cemented him as the most productive quarterback in Houston history and helped launch a 14-year (and counting) NFL career.
The takeaway for Raiola? Holgorsen has shown he can take a quarterback from “promising” to “elite” in just two seasons.
After a one-year stop at Oklahoma State following Keenum’s graduation, Holgorsen took over as head coach at West Virginia. This time, he inherited an established starter in Geno Smith, a rising junior coming off a 2,763-yard, 24-touchdown season. The task wasn’t to find a quarterback, but to turn a good one into a great one.
Holgorsen’s first year in Morgantown saw Smith erupt for nearly 4,400 passing yards and 31 touchdowns, setting a conference record for single-season passing yards and quickly earning national recognition. In 2012, Smith raised the bar again, throwing for over 4,200 yards, 42 touchdowns, and posting an elite 6:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
The two-year stretch cemented Smith as one of the nation’s top quarterbacks and vaulted him to the 39th pick in the 2013 NFL draft. Now entering his 13th NFL season, currently with the Las Vegas Raiders, Smith is still a starter, serving as yet another example of Holgorsen’s ability to elevate quarterbacks to the next level.
After Smith’s departure to the NFL, Holgorsen still found ways to produce elite quarterbacks. From 2013-16, three of his four starting QBs topped 3,000 passing yards. In 2017, he struck gold again with Will Grier, who threw for 3,490 yards and 34 touchdowns in his first season as the starter. Grier followed that up in 2018 with 3,864 yards and 37 touchdowns before being drafted in the third round by the Carolina Panthers.
At Houston, Holgorsen’s quarterback pipeline kept rolling with Clayton Tune. Over three seasons as the starter, Tune threw for nearly 12,000 yards and 104 touchdowns, becoming a fifth-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
With a proven track record of elevating quarterbacks across multiple programs, Holgorsen has shown he knows exactly how to mold elite college passers. Now, in 2025, the pairing of Holgorsen and Raiola carries that same potential.
As a true freshman last season, Raiola threw for over 2,800 yards on a 67% completion rate, leaving Holgerson with an impressive baseline. In the four games Holgorsen called plays down the stretch, Raiola’s numbers ticked up to 224 passing yards per game and nearly 72% completions, showing the early signs of a system clicking into place. The midseason slump that once plagued him was smoothed out, and the offense ended the year trending in the right direction.
With a full offseason to digest the playbook, refine mechanics, and build chemistry, Raiola enters year two with high expectations. If he follows the same trajectory as Holgorsen’s past quarterbacks, the jump could be significant, and Holgorsen will be a driving force behind it.
The numbers from Holgorsen’s previous stops aren’t just history; they’re a roadmap. From Keenum to Smith, from Grier to Tune, each passer saw measurable growth with time in Holgorsen’s system. Raiola now steps into that same blueprint, armed with talent, experience, and a coordinator who’s done it before. The stage is set. Now it’s up to Nebraska’s young quarterback to take the leap from promise to production, and if history repeats itself, the Huskers’ offense could be in for a breakout year.
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