Why Are Sports Fans Calling Dylan Raiola 'Baby Mahomes?'

There's been plenty of iconic nicknames associated with football players over the years ... and it looks like Dylan Raiola might be remembered as "Baby Mahomes" in his future!

The college football player's received a lot of attention for his similarity to Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes -- and they're both aware of the comparison, too!

We're going to check out how the quarterbacks ended up being linked and see how they've managed to take the whole situation in stride.

Dylan's on the University of Nebraska's football squad, where he plays quarterback.

The athlete had actually been committed to both Ohio State University and the University of Georgia before he ended up at Nebraska. He started playing for the Cornhuskers during their 2024 season.

Dylan's first season with the Cornhuskers saw the team go through various ups and downs, and they finished with a 7-6 record.

Oh, and by the way, the guy's got football in his genes, because his father Dominic spent 14 years playing center for the Detroit Lions -- and L.A. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is his godfather!

Dylan started being compared to Patrick at the beginning of his collegiate career -- and in all fairness, the guys don't exactly look too dissimilar.

The connection between the two only became more pronounced when the college athlete began imitating the NFL star's warmup ritual at Nebraska's games.

Nebraska's coach Matt Rhule is well aware of the comparisons between the athletes, seeing the similarity as a positive, and he claimed Dylan is "a winner, just like Patrick" on an episode of "The Rich Eisen Show."

Even the Chiefs star has commented about the similarity between their styles of play, and he referred to the Cornhuskers quarterback as his "lil cuzzo" in a post shared on his X account in August 2024.

Patrick's spoken openly about the comparison between himself and Dylan, and he totally understands why a college-level player might want to take after an NFL star.

Mahomes recalled emulating Alex Rodriguez as he played baseball growing up, and said modeling his game after the former shortstop "helped me become the athlete that I am," according to ESPN.

Mahomes also spoke highly of Dylan's football skills and predicted the Cornhuskers quarterback was "going to make his own stamp on the game" over the years.