Nebraska offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen is back in Lincoln and his star quarterback couldn’t be happier after they spent the summer apart.
“He got mad at me,” Holgorsen said of Dylan Raiola. “He was like, ‘Why didn’t you call me for five weeks?’”
Raiola and Holgorsen are heading into their first full season together after the latter joined the program late last season, taking over as offensive coordinator for the final three games. With a full offseason in the books, Nebraska is hoping the veteran offensive coordinator can get the most out of Raiola like he has at his previous stops where he produced some prolific quarterback seasons.
This season, Holgorsen is challenging the Huskers to learn the playbook as fast as possible. He wants to prepare them for tough situations so that they can maximize their potential and take advantage of defenses.
“Just focused on routine plays, taking what the defense gives you; if you do that consistently, those routine plays turn into big plays with good players,” Holgorsen said. “And I think we have good players that can turn routine plays into big plays. That will help your yards per play and that will help your explosive plays as well.”
Unfortunately, tight end Mac Markway won’t have the chance to contribute to the offensive success this season. Rhule made an impromptu appearance in front of the media on Thursday to announce that the sophomore tight end and LSU transfer had suffered a season ending ACL injury after the first day of fall camp on Monday. In 2024, Markway tore his ACL in September right before the season was set to start, and now his 2025 season has come to a devastating end.
“Heartbreaking news,” Rhule said. “He’s an unbelievable human, felt terrible for him.”
Raiola is heading into his second year leading the team in 2025. After showcasing his ability to command the team, make strong connections with his teammates, and expressing his knowledge of the game, Holgorsen’s main goal is to help the star player continue to grow and develop when leading the offense.
“Just keep controlling the game,” Holgorsen said. “I’ve said this before: his football knowledge is advanced, so we’re putting a lot of things on him. From going to the line of scrimmage and looking and seeing what’s going on and getting us in the best play, he can do that at a very high level, so the leadership stuff, that’s been awesome. The conditioning has been awesome. His rapport with people is awesome. The timing with receivers is getting better. But managing the offence and getting us into the right play is what I’m looking at, and he’s doing a great job of it.”
In order to prepare Raiola for what he’ll face during the season, Holgorsen is creating plays and scenarios his quarterback might see during the season. The veteran O.C. is focusing on different defensive formations, coverages and disguises that the young quarterback might encounter.
“I keep giving him situation after situation after situation within just a play,” Holgorsen said. “Not a situation in the game, just within the play to where he’s got to look and read defenses and get us into a better place if he can, which will make us better, make us more efficient, if he can continue to get better at that.”
Holgorsen is looking to unlock the big-play potential of Nebraska’s offensive with speedster Jacory Barney Jr. leading a talented group of weapons.
“We know Jacory can run, but sometimes he didn’t play fast,” Holgorsen said. “He’s playing faster, so that’s encouraging. All the other guys, we’re putting them in positions to see what that looks like. Do we have a bunch of 4.2 guys out there? No, we don’t, but we have good football players that have shown the ability to get behind people. That will happen, those will come.”
Going into the 2025 season, the wide receiver room will look a lot different with many new faces including a new wide receivers coach in Daikiel Shorts Jr. Before coming to Nebraska, Shorts spent one season at Kentucky as the wide receivers coach in 2024. Prior to that, he was at Houston from 2019 to 2023, where he coached wide receivers on Holgorsen’s staff his last three seasons.
Shorts was a standout wideout himself at West Virginia in Holgorsen’s offense, then after spending the 2017 season on the Buffalo Bills’ practice squad, he joined the Mountaineers’ coaching staff as a program assistant in 2018, Holgorsen’s last year in Morgantown.
The Huskers have a lot of young talent at receiver with redshirt freshmen Keelan Smith and Quinn Clark and true freshman Jeremiah Jones. Shorts said that he’s happy with the progress that they’ve made thus far.
“Just extremely proud of those guys for just taking that next step from winter to spring to summer to now,” Shorts said. “Especially Quinn and Keelan, those guys being here last year and then just trying to ramp them up and get going. But it’s a hard process. They’re still young, but they work extremely hard.”
Jones is among the players that have stood out to Shorts so far. He believes the freshman from Murray, Kentucky, is a great athlete that can play multiple positions.
“I think he’s just a freak of nature athlete, with his size and speed and the way he moves around and he runs,” Shorts said.
Many Husker fans will get their first chance to see the new-look Nebraska offense, including Shorts’ new wideouts, on Saturday at the program’s open practice.
