Matt Rhule believes Nebraska got an ‘electric’ QB in Anthony Colandrea

Matt Rhule has gotten quite a few things wrong as Nebraska football head coach, so he better be right about Anthony Colandrea.

Rhule is still trying to get the quarterback position right, just like he’s trying to fix the defense, at least to make it as good as it was during the first two seasons, before it completely fell off under John Butler.

Rhule is onto his third defensive coordinator, what will be his third special teams coordinator, and also his second offensive coordinator as he heads into year four.

That’s not exactly how Nebraska football fans thought this was going to play out. Frankly, they expected the Huskers to be a top-25 program by now, a playoff contender.

Instead, the progress has been slower than expected — isn’t it always? (Outside of Curt Cignetti)

Rhule bet that Dylan Raiola could lead Nebraska to the promised land. It was a bet that every Nebraska fan seemed willing to make, but it wasted a strong defense in 2024 on a quarterback who wasn’t ready.

Then, when it was time for him to carry the team, as the defense wasn’t as good, he wasn’t ready for that either. Raiola did improve from year one, but not enough, which is probably why his transfer portal market wasn’t what some expected.

Raiola ended up in a great spot. But he wasn’t viewed by teams in the same light as Sam Leavitt. His best football is probably in front of him, but it still needs to come to the surface.

Nebraska almost didn’t have time to wait. There’s an interesting clip from Steve Sipple on the radio, claiming that Nebraska football didn’t push that hard to retain Raiola.

If keeping Raiola meant keeping his uncle as O-line coach, Rhule made the right choice. Nobody is bigger than the program, yet Raiola tried to be. And that would have been fine, if the juice was worth the squeeze.

It wasn’t, and despite the whole Kenny Minchey affair, it feels like Nebraska got the better quarterback, at least for 2026, something Rhule said on Husker Nightly last Friday: “I think we came out better.”

The electric QB Nebraska football needed

He also talked about how he knew Colandrea was the guy the second he stepped out of the car, and started introducing himself, although the tape probably played a bigger role.

“We went back and watched Anthony’s tape,” Rhule said. “I think a great lesson for us is that you can watch the game tape all you want and see that certain player drops (in the pocket) like this and throws it like this. But, man, you put on Colandrea’s game-tape highlights, and when he touched the ball at Virginia, when he touched the ball at UNLV, he was electric, and I think that’s kind of what we need.”

Nebraska does need an electric quarterback. It needs every advantage it can get, and if you’re going to win in a major way in college football, you need a magic man back there.

Of course, you need to be great in the trenches. You have to run the ball. Colandrea does that, though. He’s got 1,151 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns. That’s on top of 7,542 passing yards and 49 touchdown passes. The three-year starter has 29 interceptions, but he’s seen it all.

The kid is a playmaker. He’s “electric,” as Rhule said, and the Huskers will need him to be to prevent this program from taking a step back in 2026.

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