Dylan Raiola

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you've never experienced separation anxiety, it is hard to
relate to Husker football fans. This morning, another player got
us emotionally pregnant and then left us on the street corner.
Dylan Rayola, the hot shot quarterback with the royal last name,
gives up on us enters college football's free agency, the
transfer portal. He'll be playing for somebody else next year.

(00:22):
The voice of our inner parent warned us, don't do it,
don't date him. He's trouble. Three high schools in three years,
in three different states. Nebraska was not his first college choice,
not even close. First he committed of Ohio State, then Georgia.
The family even moved him to Buford, Georgia, forty five
minutes from the campus in Athens. But UGA doesn't pay

(00:45):
for recruits, and nobody gets a job there. You earn
it win playing time. UGA, a top five program, pays
for performance, and starting roles are not given away. The
Rayolas new that, and good old fashioned greed kicked in.
Nebraska was desperate for a splash recruit and a quarterback,

(01:05):
so they started talking zeros and not having to compete
for the job. Suddenly, Dylan, whose father was an all
American here whose name is among the fall Saturday legends,
etched into the facade of the North End Zone, discovered
how much he loves the place, how much it means
to him, how this is home and legacy matters. Forget

(01:28):
what I am, listen to what I say, and we did,
and now he's leaving. Why he was making over three
million a year in Nil Hall. Those are tall dollars anywhere,
let alone Lincoln, by all accounts, a popular teammate, guts
through injuries, and offensive coordinators, linemen who miss blocks, receivers
who don't fight for the ball. Nothing spells pride of

(01:51):
place quite like questionable red zone play calling. But it
seems Dylan got tired of putting up with all of that.
Those nearby him convinced him there is a better gig elsewhere.
So Dylan did what Dylan does, run away. But something
else happened along the way to his coronation as quarterback
and the designated savior of the program. Everybody, coaches, fans, media,

(02:15):
and least of all, the kid discovered he may not
be quite as good as we thought. Oh he has talent,
got a great arm, big strong kid knows the game
can make the short throw, the side arm throw, the
fade route deep post. But he has deficiencies. He holds
the ball too long, is immobile, has difficulty reading defenses.
Leadership skills, that's a tricky one. He shows some, but

(02:37):
lacks some. The best the leader quarterbacks we've ever had here,
Dennis Claridge, Jerry Taggie, Turner, Gail Tommy Crouch. Think about
their leadership skills and compare them to Dylan's And is
that even fair? Those guys had a lot better teammates
and coaches. But football, like life, ain't fair. If it was,
Mike McCluskey would have been called out of the eighty

(03:01):
two Penn State Game, Miami's Ken Calhoun's finger wouldn't have
tipped away that option pass for two in the Orange Bowl,
and Matt Davison would have been on the other side
of the north end zone that night in Columbia. It hurt,
but we were good with it. Life ain't fair. Sometimes
life doesn't work out. So we learned to take that

(03:22):
bowl of lemons and make lemonade. Not anymore today. Commitment shmmittment.
Today's theme is what's in it for me? These days
we're teaching our kids how to put their thumb on
life scale. Confront adversity by avoiding it. Manage disappointment by
hitting the reset button. Don't like what you see, don't look,

(03:45):
don't get enough playing time, that's the coach's fault. Flunk
a test, the teacher didn't give me enough time to prepare,
Get fired. Boss was an a hole. Two mandates anymore
place blame and feel no pain. Sadly doing so is
really a soft form of child abuse. We get eighteen
years to get our kids ready for the time or

(04:05):
times when life will hand them a crap sandwich. If
they aren't equipped when it happens, they'll have to eat it. Now,
whose fault would that be