Friday Five: Nebraska volleyball starts again
Nebraska volleyball gets its 2026 season started on Sunday with the Red-White Scrimmage. That means we can officially start talking about what this team is and more.
Nebraska volleyball gets its 2026 season started on Sunday with the Red-White Scrimmage. That means we can officially start talking about what this team is (and what it is trying not to get distracted by).
The Huskers met with the media on Thursday and the theme was pretty clear: Nebraska knows what people expect.
Here are five things to take into Red-White weekend.
1. Nebraska is No. 1, but the Huskers aren’t exactly basking in it
Nebraska was together in the locker room Monday when the AVCA preseason poll dropped. The Huskers were ranked No. 1, which was not all that shocking after a 33-1 season and so much of the roster returning. The reaction, however, was a little more interesting.
“(It was) almost more like, ‘We don’t want it,’” setter Bergen Reilly said. “‘We don’t want to see that. We would rather be unranked than that.’ We love that people have confidence in us and that’s great, but it’s some outside noise. We want to go in every day and have a chip on our shoulder and prove ourselves.
“Yeah, we’re No. 1, but that means nothing at the end of the year and we’ve seen that in the last couple years.”
The Huskers were also preseason No. 1 in 2025. As you remember, they went on to win 33 straight matches before losing to Texas A&M in the Elite Eight. The Huskers aren’t ignoring that loss, but they aren’t letting it dictate too much heading into 2026.
“We just talk about finishing,” Reilly said. “We don’t necessarily go back and watch every single thing we did wrong in that game, but we just say, ‘How can we find a way to finish this year? How can we finish the drill or finish the lift when we’re tired?’”
2. The schedule gets serious fast
After Sunday’s scrimmage, it’s full steam ahead for Nebraska.
The Huskers head to Arlington, Texas, on Thursday, Aug. 27 for the Spikes Under the Lights showcase at AT&T Stadium. They open exhibition play against No. 17 Florida, with a possible second exhibition against No. 10 Penn State or No. 11 SMU.
Then Nebraska goes to Las Vegas on Saturday, Aug. 29 to officially open the season against UNLV before facing No. 2 Texas the next night in the Players Era Showcase.
No. 1 vs. No. 2 in the second match of the season? Sure, why not.
“I grew up in the Big 12 and played here in the Big 12, and so that Texas rivalry runs pretty deep,” Busboom Kelly said. “That is a great call by both myself and Jerritt (Elliott) to renew that and showcase the sport even more. They have everybody returning. We have most everybody returning, so it should be a really fun match.”
There is more after that too: South Dakota State and DePaul on the road, followed by Missouri at Wrigley Field for the Big Ten/SEC Challenge. It is a lot of travel, a lot of event-style volleyball and, as Busboom Kelly said, maybe heavier than she would have liked.
Her read on it is that Nebraska will need that discomfort later.
3. This is a familiar roster but not the same team
Nebraska did not lose anyone to the transfer portal for the second straight season. The Huskers return five starters and both liberos from last year’s team, while adding three freshmen to replace four outgoing seniors.
That is a lot of continuity but Busboom Kelly still does not see this as a copy of 2025.
“It honestly feels a lot different this year for me,” Busboom Kelly said. “Maybe it’s because I was so new last year and had a lot going on but this feels a little bit different. I don’t really look at last year like, ‘OK, where are we continuing from last year? What are we doing piggybacking off last year?’ It feels like a new team.
“We still have great depth, but I think the margins are even closer this year than they were last year as far as starters, non-starters, who’s going to contribute and what kind of roles players are going to carve out. I think our staff, we’ve been together now a year and a half, and a little more cadence, and it just feels different.”
That’s an interesting roster note too. Nebraska has so much back but roles still have to be earned. The five-for-five eligibility model also gives younger players a chance to get live reps instead of automatically redshirting.
That includes sophomore setter Campbell Flynn, who had planned to redshirt.
“I’m excited because redshirting was the goal, but then I wouldn’t be able to play,” Flynn said. “I think getting reps, even if it’s just a little bit in games, will help to boost my confidence on the court.”
4. A strong review for Sean Smith
One of Nebraska’s biggest offseason additions was not a player.
Busboom Kelly hired Sean Smith as director of volleyball player performance and development in June. The two worked together at Louisville from 2018 to 2023.
“Sean’s so awesome,” Andi Jackson said. “He is a great strength coach, obviously, but he’s also just a really good person. He’s very easy to talk to, and you can just tell from day one that he’s in our corner and he wants the best for us, and he’s going to do what it takes to help us excel both on and off the court, which we all really appreciate … We’ve been with him for a while now, and it’s been awesome. We go really hard at lift, and not that we didn’t before, but it’s just it’s a different program …
“He’s so awesome, and we love working with him. I hope you guys get to talk to him, because he has so much knowledge. He’s cool. He’s really cool to talk to because he’s just very friendly and he’s just great to talk to. So he’s awesome. We love him.”
That is a strong review.
5. The seniors are setting the tone
Nebraska lost one of its loudest voices when Rebekah Allick graduated after last season. Busboom Kelly said leadership has become more collective among the four seniors: Laney Choboy, Harper Murray, Reilly and Jackson.
“Andi and Bergen, I think they both really took jumps with their leadership roles, but Laney and Harper are great leaders too,” Busboom Kelly said. “Our whole senior class is pretty vocal, and they’ve done a good job of letting each other be vocal at appropriate times, which I think is really unique. Whether they’re captains or not, named captain or not, you can’t really tell who’s a captain, which I think is really important, especially when you have such a great senior class. So they’re all leading in different ways and being vocal at different times.”
Whether this is the final season for all four is still unknown because of the new eligibility model. Either way, Busboom Kelly is not framing the year as a forced march toward a perfect ending.
“They’re pretty motivated, but I also think they’ve felt disappointment for three years in a row, so I don’t think the right method to go about that is just hammering home winning or leaving legacy,” Busboom Kelly said. “It’s more leaving and feeling great about what you did here. Jordan Larson’s been helping us a little bit as sort of a consultant, and she talked about you can win or lose at the end of the year, and it might feel terrible both ways. So you want to make sure that how you leave and how we end the season feels great.”
That is a pretty grounded place to be at this moment in time. After all, the goal is obvious. Nebraska wants to win the whole thing.
But for now, it starts with a scrimmage, a first look and the official return of volleyball season.