So good it made you forget

Nebraska volleyball's season ended a few matches short of what at times felt inevitable: a national championship. Don't let the former diminish the latter.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

One of the best Nebraska volleyball seasons I’ve ever seen ended with one of the best matches I’ve ever seen, and it didn’t feel all that good if you were a Husker fan. The match didn’t end in a win. It didn’t even offer the slight solace of being the last-possible match of the season.

The No. 1 Huskers (33-1) lost for the first time this season and the first time in Lincoln since 2022, falling 22-25, 22-25, 25-20, 37-35, 13-15 to 3-seed Texas A&M. It was the Aggies’ second-ever win over the top-ranked team in the country, and it punched the program’s ticket to its first NCAA Semifinal.

“I’m looking forward to going back and watching that match,” A&M head coach Jamie Morrison said, “because it might’ve been one of the most entertaining matches in the history of the sport.”

True, but it may not be revisited as often in Nebraska. The Huskers spent all season as the No. 1 team in the country. As they ripped through a challenging non-con and Big Ten schedule, it felt reasonable to have the “best ever?” talk. If NU could get through the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at home, the reward was a de facto home final four in Kansas City.¹

It was all right there until it wasn’t, which might be how I remember the 2025 team. Nebraska had been so good going into Sunday that it made you forget one of life’s key lessons—everything you thought you knew can be different in what feels like an instant.

That means you’re pretty good.

I was asked a couple of times in radio interviews in recent weeks if Nebraska had a weakness. There wasn’t a lot to point to, but you worried about a team with a big block that also got hot from the service line. It was probably going to take something like that.

Over the previous 33 matches, Nebraska had been blocked 1.47 times per set and aced 0.96. On Sunday, Texas A&M basically doubled both those numbers (3.4 and 1.8 respectively). The Huskers struggled in unforeseen ways. Middle Blocker Andi Jackson, a national Player of the Year finalist who hit .486 on the season, hit .045 and was subbed out for long stretches for freshman Manaia Ogbechie.²

Nebraska struggled in uncontrollable ways. Setter Bergen Reilly was sick but played through it for five sets, including the epic, marathon fourth set. Opposite hitter Allie Sczech was injured in warmups and couldn’t go, a tough break on a day when the NU pins struggled early on while the Aggies took a 2-0 lead.³

So, that’s the brief version of how one of the best seasons ever ended. It might not get talked about in those terms as much as it once did because that’s how it ended.

But Nebraska head coach Dani Busboom Kelly offered an alternative interpretation.

“I think we maxed out,” she said. “With what we had today, I think we maxed out. That’s always the goal at the end of the year. That’s why as a coach I don’t feel upset. We didn’t make the final four. We’re not going to win a national championship, but we maxed out today, and we can walk away from the last game of the season and feel like we gave it our all.”

That’s not a salve for the shock of it being over, but if it’s true—and I, the person who saw nearly no weaknesses when asked, believe it is—Nebraska had one of its best seasons ever.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Briefly

• Nebraska held court this weekend on a couple of different courts. The No 24 women’s team wasn’t expected to get a major challenge from Illinois State Sunday in Lincoln and didn’t, winning 85-44 to remain unbeaten. Still, 11-0 is 11-0. The Huskers get a week break before hosting Cal Baptist Dec. 21 and then welcoming current-No. 16 USC to Lincoln Dec. 28.

• The men’s team was expected to face a major challenge as a double-digit dog at No. 13 Illinois⁴ Saturday. The Huskers built a big lead early behind Pryce Sandfort (26 first-half points), let it slip and then got a game-winning 3 from Jamarques Lawrence for an 83-80 victory. The Huskers (11-0) are certainly moving into the top-20 of the AP poll when the new rankings arrive today (from No. 23), but top-15 could be in play. If not now, perhaps soon—the Huskers’ next two games are against North Dakota (Dec. 21) and New Hampshire (Dec. 30) before resuming conference play after the first of the year.

• Quiet weekend on the football front, but if you’re getting your portal priorities in order you may have already noted that San Diego State edge rusher August Salvati intends to be in there when it opens Jan. 2. He started his career at a junior college, transferred to Florida Atlantic, transferred to SDSU and, despite not starting and missing the regular-season finale, tallied 3.5 sacks. Salvati’s defensive coordinator, Rob Aurich, and position coach, Roy Manning, are at Nebraska now.

• “Cool,” you might be thinking, “do I really need to keep my eye on a non-starter with 3.5 sacks?” To answer that we must return to The Suh Line, a simple measure of if any Nebraska player matches what Suh did (7.0 TFLs, 4.5 sacks) against Texas in the 2009 Big 12 Championship Game.⁵ For just the fourth time since 2010, the Huskers had no player check both boxes in 2025. Linebackers Javin Wright and Vincent Shavers Jr. both got there with 7.5 TFLs, but didn’t hit the sack total. NU’s sack leader was Williams Nwaneri with 2.5, meaning no player had as many sacks over 12 games as Suh did in one. There’s still good promise on NU’s d-line, and you hope Aurich can unlock some of it immediately, but any potential addition up front gets additional attention automatically.

1. Tough Sunday for Kansas City. The Chiefs miss the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade, Patrick Mahomes tears his ACL and then the city misses out on three days of Nebraska fans absolutely flooding the place.

2. Nebraska also eventually ran out of subs, so that factors here, too.

3. Even then, it was hard to consider the Huskers done. They we’re on their home floor and had already won 30 matches by winning three sets in a row, including a reverse sweep of Kentucky, which had already won a spot in the national semifinals.

4. No State to save you here.

5. And what I hope will be my legacy someday, outside of dad stuff, of course.