'I Think Raiola Is Ready to Take Off': Sam Khan Jr. Discusses Dana Holgorsen's Impact on Nebraska's 2025 Offense

What kind of impact will Dana Holgorsen have on Nebraska's offense in 2025?

It's a question that's been asked by Cornhusker fans since he was hired in November of 2024. On the all-new I-80 Football Show, Sam Khan Jr. of The Athletic spoke with Josh Peterson about covering Dana Holgorsen at Houston, why Nebraska is such a good fit for the longtime coach, and what he could mean for Dylan Raiola and the rest of the offense.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of their discussion.

Josh: I am curious about your thoughts on Dana Holgorsen. Making that move to move on from Marcus Satterfield last November is certainly one that I probably think about on a daily basis when I'm talking about Husker football. What do you think about the offensive coordinator that Nebraska is getting in Holgorsen?

Sam: First of all, I love Dana. He's one of my favorites. I covered him when he was at University of Houston. There's nobody quite like Dana Holgorsen. I'm sure when you sat in the press conference with him and listened to him, he is honest a hundred percent. He will tell you how he thinks. If he thinks a guy stinks, he will tell you he thinks the guy stinks. Most coaches don't do that.

Dana does not suffer fools. He loves to coach ball. He loves offensive football. To me, he is the closest thing, personality-wise, of all the Mike Leach disciples. Dana is closest to Mike, to me in terms of personality. He doesn't tell the long stories and have the weird curiosities that he talks about like Mike did, but in terms of how he thinks about football and how he conducts himself. He shows up to the office; he's there to call plays to help that team win.

And he's not gonna apologize for who he is or what he says. He has standards. He's gonna tell you what he thinks. And he's going to be honest. And I think that's really all you can ask. And if some people don't handle that great, sometimes it can be hard to work for him or play for him because it can be hard to take that criticism. But it's constructive. He's not telling you because he thinks you're a bad guy. He's telling you because he wants you to get better. He wants to hold you to a standard. He wants to win.

But I think this job has been such a great thing for him because, toward the end of his time at Houston, we talked about all this change in roster management and how you build a program. 25 years from when he started in the mid-1990s at Iowa Westland, it looked a lot different than it does now.

New Nebraska OC Dana Holgorsen's time in Houston came to a tough close. | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

So like a lot of coaches who have been in this a long time, it was hard to reconcile how much had changed. And I could tell, I think at the end of his time at Houston, I'd never sensed that Dana was having fun because what Dana loves it at this heart of hearts just loves to call plays and coach ball and win football games, especially on the offensive side of the football. I got a sense toward the end that, and you know it just with any other head coach, being a head coach now is not about calling plays and actual teaching and coaching ball. It's about managing an organization. And I don't think Dana loved that part of it.

Like he did it well. Like he was ahead of the curve on transfers, and he was a West Virginia. They were taking tons of transfers. They were mining the Juco markets. Will Greer was one of those, “let's take a transfer, sits out a year, and then he plays for us.” Turned out to be great. He was ahead of the curve on that stuff, but he didn't love it. And he didn't love how you had to turn over the roster so much.

And also, where they were at Houston, where they were at the Group of Five level for a while, and then obviously the Power Four level, they were not getting the elite guys, and they were having a fight and claw. They didn't have the NIL money to retain some of their guys, or they didn't have the NIL money to win on some of these transfers, who, guess what? Coach loved him, player loved the coach. We got this guy this close to being committed, but guess what? The Power Four program down the road offered him twice as much as you can.

When he got let go at Houston and he needed somewhere to land, I think this was such a great place for him to land because Matt Rule knows he is. He has a plan. He has a vision. And also, from what I understand, from what I heard, doesn't have to be out recruiting a lot. I know he wasn't one that loved to be out on the road recruiting.

So he gets to be in the office, work on this offense, work on getting these players better, work on getting the scheme up, and so that this team can maximize itself and become a really good offensive football team.

Nobody in my mind has questioned Dana Holgorsen’s offensive acumen. I certainly don't, because to me, even when he was at Houston, he went back and forth on calling plays. To me, he was at his best when he was calling it. When he was calling it, you could tell. When they played Texas, I think it was his second last year, or maybe it was his last year, in 2023, Texas' last year in the Big 12; that was a Dana Holgorsen game. Like, you watch how they played, and you watch how they schemed up, that was a Dana Holgorsen game. And to me, that is when he's at his best.

Or when you see what he did at West Virginia at the end of his time there, and when they flirted with the Big 12 championship game. That is Dana Holgorsen. And to me, he loves that part. He's passionate about that part. And he's going to give you everything he's got because he wants to win the football games. And so I think he's a great fit, especially for this era, because now what is asked coordinators now is different from what is asked coordinators ten, 15 years ago.

And I think with what Rhule has put around him; with a young quarterback who I think we all know is uber talented. I think there's a lot of potential. I'm really excited to see what Dylan Raiola has this year because now having a few games at the end of last year, spending all off season with Dana, I'm gonna see a lot of mesh and I'm gonna love it because it works. You can probably find a YouTube clip of Dana running mesh for like a half hour because it works. And he teaches it in a really good way and there's tweaks and they can add different wrinkles to it formationally or maybe with motions or with how we execute it, how we run it.

Dylan Raiola had one of his best games of the 2024 season vs. Wisconsin. — With Dana Holgorsen calling plays, Dylan Raiola had one of his best games of the 2024 season against Wisconsin. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

I think Raiola is ready to take off because I you can see the raw talent. You talk to coaches who played him, the guy has a lot of poise. There's a lot of maturity there. And I think, he's really got a chance to take off with Dana Holgorsen.

So I'm excited to see how this offense comes together. And I think Dana's comfortable. I think he's happy. I think he's a great fit for the staff and I'm really excited to see what he has in store because I think this offense could really take off with him being the full-time guy all year long.

Watch the entire I-80 Football Show below, including Sam discussing Matt Rhule's Baylor career, as well as John Dicarlo of OwlScoop.com talking about Matt Rhule's four years at Temple!

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