I know, Georgia fans.

You were over it when Dylan Raiola posted a poem announcing that he’d flipped his commitment to Nebraska. “Good riddance,” you said. “He’s not worth the drama.”

I hear you. You might be right now and 3 years from now.

But hear me out.

Two things can be true at the same time with the long-expected flip from the 5-star signal-caller.

One is that Georgia will probably be just fine. Nobody has proven to roll with the punch of losing a 5-star quarterback quite like Kirby Smart.

Mind you, that’s not including Jacob Eason’s 2016 season because he was a Mark Richt recruit whom Smart got to sign. It’s also not including JT Daniels, who was a former 5-star recruit, but he came to UGA as a transfer, not a high school recruit. Both transferred, anyway.

So did Justin Fields. So did Brock Vandagriff. It’s nothing new.

How many years did it truly feel like Georgia would’ve been better off with one of those 4 5-star quarterbacks who left? Probably 2019 and 2020 when Fields was becoming a star at Ohio State, though I’ll continue to push back on those who say Fields should’ve been the 2018 starter when a second-year Jake Fromm returned after he led the Dawgs to their first national championship berth since the Herschel Walker era … and Fromm had his best season in 2018.

But I digress. Let’s bring it back to Raiola.

Raiola was never on Georgia’s campus, so he won’t be in the category of Fields, Eason, Vandagriff and Daniels, none of whom finished their careers at UGA.

Did Carson Beck’s announced return prove to be the nail in the coffin for Raiola sticking with Georgia? Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. The timing certainly added to that notion, as did the fact that Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord went to Syracuse instead of Nebraska.

And sure, there’s the family angle that Georgia was competing against. Raiola will join his uncle, Donovan Raiola, who is the Huskers’ offensive line coach. How much that played a part in the late flip, who knows.

What we do know is that Raiola committed to 3 different programs and he attended 4 different high schools. What are the odds that he stays at Nebraska for his entire college career? Not great, especially if you look at how often blue-chip recruits are transferring. Even if Raiola had stuck with Georgia and waited a year behind Beck, he could’ve bolted without penalty if he didn’t feel like Smart was willing to hand him the starting job for 2025.

All of that can be true. What else can be true?

It would’ve been nice for Georgia to continue to add talent to its quarterback room for the post-Beck era.

The Dawgs already lost the aforementioned Vandagriff to the portal. Gunner Stockton will presumably slide into the QB2 role, but he has attempted 9 passes at the college level (0 vs. Power 5 competition) in his 2 seasons in Athens. Remember, UGA didn’t sign a quarterback in the 2023 class after missing out on the Arch Manning sweepstakes. Unlike last cycle, Smart had another quarterback committed this cycle. Maybe 4-star signal-caller Ryan Puglisi will be the quarterback of the future, or maybe he’ll be buried on the depth chart in Athens before he transfers.

We don’t know. Georgia fans don’t even know.

Quarterback rooms have never been more fluid. Smart knows that. He also knows why there was great excitement when Raiola flipped to Georgia in May. It was a victory after not landing Manning. It was a sign that Smart’s lack of commitment to starting 5-star quarterbacks wasn’t hurting him on the recruiting trail.

Without being privy to those conversations, I won’t pretend I know whether that’s true or if it’s just a narrative. We just know the results. Elite talent is still the common denominator of national champions in the Playoff era. Raiola would’ve given Georgia a clear plan to replace Beck in hopes of following a transition like Mac Jones to Bryce Young. Now, the post-Beck world is less clear at quarterback.

Will Georgia figure it out? Probably. In the 12-team Playoff era, there’s more room for error to make the field, though you could argue that there’s less room for error to win 1-2 extra games against elite competition.

For now, Beck might be the single best-returning asset to navigate that path. He and Jalen Milroe figure to be the top 2 signal-callers returning in the sport. One more year of Beck could prove to be more valuable than a signed letter of intent from Raiola. If Raiola lives up to the hype, he’ll eventually be talked about the way we’re talking about Beck. Time will tell.

An enthralling recruitment reached its final destination. If Raiola really is part of a new dynasty — as he forecasted — his flip will be part of college football lore.

For now, the reigning dynasty will carry on without skipping a beat.