It is beginning to settle in that Nebraska Cornhuskers quarterback Dylan Raiola won't remain in Lincoln next fall.
For former Cornhuskers linebacker-turned-podcast host Will Compton, he is open to a fresh start for his alma.
"It is what it is,” Compton said on "Bussin' With the Boys." “Personally, it’s like, I know he had the injury with the broken leg and everything else. What he’s done, what Dylan has meant to Nebraska for the last couple years – he’s a hell of a player, hell of a talent, hell of an athlete."
Compton said Raiola leaving was inevitable. It was just a matter of when.
“Now that he’s [going] in the portal, everything that I’ve heard behind the scenes and everything else, I kind of knew that this was coming," Compton said. "At this point, it’s more like, it is what it is. This is the world we live in now. And he’s not the guy that’s going to be the quarterback under center for Nebraska next year. So whoever that next guy’s going to be – whether it’s in-house right now or somebody we get out of the portal – I’m going to be the biggest fan.”
Compton suggested that NIL potentially played a factor, but didn't go into specifics as to why he knew that this was happening.
" How I went through Nebraska, how you think of [it] has a competitor and everything else you see with this NIL world, I was hopeful that he would be in this process of getting healthy and everything else, and want to continue to build on the little success that we’ve had over the last couple years and continue to be the guy and continue to run into the fight and bring this program back to what we want it to be," Compton said.
As for what's next, Compton said he is unsure who the new quarterback could be, but says Nebraska will eventually be better off once it figures it out.
“That’s not surprising,” Compton said. "
“I knew that that was coming. … I’ve spoke with people over the weekend. Those conversations will stay with me and who I was talking to," Compton said. “But all the evidence has let up to, he’s going to be hitting the portal at some point. … Listen, we’re going to find us a quarterback. Not even worried about this.”
For now, Nebraska is a little under two weeks away from playing in a bowl game which could easily springboard how next year may transpire
What happens next, though, could potentially define coach Matt Rhule's tenure, who admitted he is dissatisfied with where the program is and knows he can do better.
“This season is not good enough for the standard that we want to set at Nebraska,” Rhule said. “Back-to-back bowl bowl seasons for the first time in a long time, all that’s great. But we have higher expectations for what we want to get done. We ended the season on a real down note, losing the last two games and by a score that wasn’t representative of the team that went out and played Michigan and USC and earlier in the year.”