Things haven't gone as planned so far in Big Ten pay for Nebraska football, which entered the season with College Football Playoff aspirations but now is just fighting for bowl positioning. On Saturday night, a potential upset bid took a wrong turn in the worst way possible.
Starting quarterback Dylan Raiola was forced to leave Saturday's game against USC with a lower leg injury and did not return. Further tests have confirmed that Raiola suffered a broken fibula and is out for the rest of the season, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel.
Nebraska was leading for much of the game against the Trojans, but the offense stalled out when Raiola was forced out of the game. Backup QB TJ Lateef failed to get anything going and USC was able to mount the 21-17 comeback victory. Now, the offense will be in Lateen's hands for the rest of the year with Raiola sidelined.
As the second half went on, there was some discussion about why Raiola didn't come back in the game and tough it out. After the game, head coach Matt Rhule addressed those talks, via Chandler Vessels of On3 Sports.
“From a medical perspective, they were like, ‘He can’t run,'” Rhule said. “I just didn’t see the respectable thing to do to put a guy out there who can’t run. …Really at the end of the day, I just don’t think you can put a guy out there who can’t defend himself or protect himself. The trainers didn’t want him to go out there, but they didn’t say, ‘No, he can’t.’ They just said he shouldn’t be out there. I told Dylan, ‘I love you too much to ask you to play when you’re hurt like this.'”
Of course, now that the official diagnosis is as serious as it is, it was obviously the smart decision to keep Raiola out of the game. Now, his focus will be on getting back healthy for his junior season in 2026.
The former five-star recruit finishes the 2025 campaign with exactly 2,000 passing yards and 18 touchdowns against six interceptions. Nebraska is now 6-3 on the season and has road games against UCLA and Penn State coming up, so Lateef will have to learn the ropes quickly to get this offense moving in the right direction.
