Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola Comes Clean on Patrick Mahomes Obsession in Major Chiefs QB Revelation

For those who call themselves die-hard fans of Patrick Mahomes, you’ll have to fight Dylan Raiola to be able to say that. The Nebraska QB is pretty much Mahomes 2.0, emanating his qualities both on and off the field. He’s no longer just a fanboy of the Chiefs star but has grown to build a meaningful relationship with his hero. While that is a major feat to flex on his teammates and opponents, Raiola’s love for Mahomes is beyond just a simple obsession.

All this talk about Dylan Raiola taking on after Patrick Mahomes had the Chiefs QB a little worried about his age. “It’s just telling me I’m getting a little old,” he joked, in a conversation with ESPN. But the Husker QBs’ love for Mahomes is not from a far-off distance. He has channelled it to be able to learn from the QB, having trained with him and learnt his style. This season, the Mahomes-Raiola talk will eclipse with Nebraska beginning their season in the Chiefs’ home ground, the Arrowhead Stadium.

When comparing the two QBs, their calibre is also brought to attention. Mahomes was an absolute phenom in college football, finishing with more than 11000 yards at Texas Tech. When Dylan Raiola entered college football as a Husker, that same attention came to him as well. He was a 5-star athlete with 8,442 yards in the bag and single-handedly became a game-changing factor for Nebraska football. As Raiola prepares to make a comeback after his rocky start, he has a few words about his admiration for his hero.

He told CBS Sports in an August 2 video, “He’s a great person. You can start there with anybody that you look up to. And you get on the field, he’s just a winner. He’s a competitor. He’s not going to take no for an answer. And he’s going to find a way to win and fight till the end. And so, I think you’ve seen it time to time in his career where he’s gone down and won games in the end… It’s just cool to see and look up to a guy like that. And he’s one of the greats and, [It’d] be smart for me to pay attention to what he’s doing.”

In the offseason, Dylan Raiola went to town on improving himself. He got to work with Patrick Mahomes’ QB coach, Jeff Christensen, and trainer Bobby Stroupe. And he has himself worked with Mahomes in the past. “I think he’s going to make his own stamp on the game. And I think you’ve seen that early in his career,” Mahomes said of his “lil cuzzo.”  Raiola is looking to improve his 2024 records of in what is going to be a defining 2025 season. In another interview, he also brought up the relationship between two basketball greats into the talk of his rapport with Patrick Mahomes.

Dylan Raiola brings Kobe and Michael Jordan into his equation with Mahomes

The Nebraska Q’s inspirations go beyond football. “Chasing Perfection,” he wrote in the caption of one of his Instagram posts. And the man who said those words needs no further introduction. Neither does the other basketball legend who his Raiola’s hero’s hero. During the Big Ten Media Days, Raiola drew a parallel between the bon he shares with Patrick Mahomes to that of Lakers icons Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.

“I’m not comparing myself to Kobe or anything, but like Kobe did to Mike, that’s kind of what it is like for me to Patrick,” Raiola said during an appearance for the Cover 3 Podcast. “He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league right now, if not the best. Just for me to be able to have someone to look up to, talk, call, whatever…the comparisons are kind of everything outside,” he added. After Jordan, Kobe Bryant is undoubtedly the legend to have graced the court after the phenom. It’s a comparison too grand for Raiola, considering he’s only played one season in college football. But it also shows how high his aspirations go for his career.

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Mahomes and more or less modelling his whole self after the QB, Dylan Raiola has had his eyes set on the big stage for a long time. But he’ll have to spend a little more time in Lincoln before he gets to play in the same ranks as his hero. With the hype around Matt Rhule’s famed Year 3 in Nebraska, will Raiola go one step closer in matching up to Patrick Mahomes?