National Signing Day was earlier this week, and college football programs around the country finalized their 2024 recruiting class. One team that did pretty well is Nebraska football. The Cornhuskers have been struggling for awhile now, but this recruiting class could be a sign that Matt Rhule is going to bring them back. Nebraska finished with the #18 class in the country, and they landed five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola, who flipped from Georgia to the Cornhuskers.

Back when Dylan Raiola was going through his recruitment, his dad talked to Kirk Herbstreit on the phone about the situation. Raiola was committed to Georgia, but his dad, who is a Nebraska legend, was asking Herbstreit about Nebraska football and Matt Rhule. The whole thing created some drama, but Herbstreit recently gave his side of the story during an appearance on The Paul Finebaum show.

“My question to you or anybody is…if somebody calls and says ‘What do you think about Matt Rhule?' and you like Matt Rhule, are you supposed to say ‘Matt Rhule is a bad guy, Matt Rhule is an idiot, Matt Rhule is a bad coach?'” Herbstreit said. “Or do you say, ‘I like Matt Rhule. Matt Rhule is a good coach'?”

When Raiola flipped his commitment from Georgia to Nebraska, people were wondering if the call with Herbstreit had anything to do with it. Herbstreit went on to say that he never told anybody to not go to Georgia or anything along those lines.

“I of course did not sell Nebraska and try to tell anybody not to go to Georgia,” Herbstreit continued. “That's the most ridiculous thing anybody would do. But I did complement Matt Rhule. If I'm guilty of anything, I said that Matt Rhule is a good coach and a good man and I believe that he will bring Nebraska back the way he did Temple and Baylor.”

Dominic Raiola, Dylan's father, recounted the conversation that he had with Herbstreit about Nebraska. Here is his story.

“When [Herbstreit] saw the smoke about Dylan entertaining Nebraska, he called me,” Raiola said. “He said, ‘dude, is this true? He’s got to do it.’ His affinity for Nebraska, for a guy like that, to tell me and get behind me. I knew he needed to do it. But I wasn’t going to sit here and say ‘You need to go change that place or be a part of the change of that place.’ So when Kirk told me that … I’ve had other coaches reach out to me and say the place is special. Coach (Matt) Rhule is a special leader.”

Who knows what really went down, but we do know that Dylan Raiola is going to play for the Nebraska football team. Matt Rhule and the Cornhuskers didn't have a great year last season as they went 5-7, but they are returning a lot of talent, and they are starting to recruit a lot better. The next step for this team is getting back to a bowl game, and then competing for Big Ten titles.