Joel Klatt Names Big Ten Quarterback That’s a ‘Clone’ of Patrick Mahomes

Joel Klatt is certainly drinking the Nebraska Kool-Aid this offseason and loves what Matt Rhule is building as he starts his second season at the helm of the Cornhusker program.

He'll be starting his second season with a quarterback in his very first year, Dylan Raiola, which is always a challenge at the Big Ten level, especially with the older nature of the position nowadays thanks to the transfer portal and extra COVID years that are still being used up. Regardless, Joel Klatt is excited about the youngster.

In fact, he had a pretty favorable comparison for Raiola when discussing Nebraska as part of his preseason college football rankings, saying that he reminds him of none other than Patrick Mahomes.

"I understand it's a true freshman that you don't know exactly how he's going to play, but MAN, this guy is talented. Doesn't he look like — I shouldn't say this — he looks like Patrick Mahomes."

Perhaps there's no proof yet Raiola has nearly the talent of No. 15 on the Chiefs, but he does have the look down, per Klatt.

"I don't know if he's going to play like that, but he's like a clone of Patrick Mahomes. The way he moves, the sleeve on his arm — I'm like, wow, that looks a lot like Patrick in college when he was at Texas Tech."

Mahomes even made mention of the similarities between he and Raiola in a social media post last week, referring to the Nebraska freshman as 'cuzzo' after a photo of Raiola went viral in which he looked strikingly similar to Mahomes.

After Hill spotted the similarities, Mahomes replied by saying: "That’s my lil cuzzo."

As for Raiola's first year in college, Joel Klatt noted that Nebraska was too often undone by turnovers in 2023, and those errors were largely on the QB. Inserting a freshman may not sound like the proper fix for ball security issues, but if Raiola can make taking care of the ball the No. 1 focus, he could be an upgrade regardless of age.

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