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Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes tweets about Nebraska's Dylan Raiola's touchdown: 'Lil cuzzo'
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- Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes tweets about Nebraska's Dylan Raiola's touchdown: 'Lil cuzzo'
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the outcome of Nebraska's game vs. UTEP and Dylan Raiola 's final stats from Saturday.
Nebraska football 's freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola turned heads in his collegiate debut on Saturday.
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And three-time Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was one of them.
Mahomes subtweeted a post on X (formerly Twitter) after Raiola threw a 59-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Neyor in the second quarter of the Cornhuskers ' season opener Saturday vs. UTEP. He captioned it with the phrase, "Lil cuzzo!!" and then added a flex emoji, followed by a bullseye emoji.
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The touchdown to Neyor was Raiola's second touchdown of the afternoon. The pass was thrown into double coverage down the sideline, but somehow found the hands of Neyor, who regained his balance after a brief tumble for the walk into the end zone.
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Raiola, who is the son of former Detroit Lions center Dominic Raiola, has gone viral in recent weeks after arriving on campus in Lincoln, Nebraska for training camp back on July 31 looking like Mahomes. His uncle, Donovan Raiola, is the offensive line coach at Nebraska.
Mahomes quickly responded on X (formerly Twitter) after someone tagged him on a Nebraska post of Dylan Raiola, which in hindsight added an extra layer and longevity to this.
"That's my lil cuzzo," Mahomes said in a quote tweet.
But it isn't just the haircut or facial hair that sparked this. It's also how Raiola throws the ball and goes through his progressions — which is nothing new for younger players to study and take things from NFL players that they look up to.
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"It's pretty cool to be (noticed) by a guy like Mahomes," Raiola said at a news conference earlier this month when asked about initial comparisons to Mahomes on social media. "He's probably going to go down as one of the greatest. It's cool. But our focus is to work on our team and keep getting better in camp."
Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two from earlier Saturday when Dylan Raiola arrived at the stadium:
The 6-foot-3 quarterback, who was ranked as the No. 21 overall prospect in the 2024 recruiting class by 247Sports' Composite rankings , flipped his commitment from Georgia to Nebraska on Dec. 18 of last year.
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The Cornhuskers moved to 1-0 on the season for the first time since 2019, then coached by Scott Frost, as they took down UTEP 40-7 on Saturday. Dylan Raiola completed 19 of 27 passes for 238 yards and two touchdowns.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Patrick Mahomes calls Dylan Raiola 'lil cuzzo' after Nebraska QB touchdown
