Husker Assistant Jaylen Reyes Talks About the New Era of Nebraska Volleyball

On this week's episode of Volleyball State, Husker assistant Jaylen Reyes joins Lincoln Arneal and Jeff Sheldon for a wide-ranging conversation about the changes the program has gone in the last few months, what it's meant for assistants, and so much more.

Below is a lightly-edited transcript of their select excerpts.

How have things changed with Dani Busboom Kelly in charge?

Lincoln: How different has this spring been for you compared to years past?

Jaylen: It’s been great. Dani is Dani, you know, and people that know her, how awesome she is and what she's done in her coaching career, not just at Louisville, but before that at Louisville as an assistant, at Tennessee, here at Nebraska. And then obviously doing what coach Meske's done at Louisville kind of speaks for itself.

Nebraska Cornhuskers volleyball head coach Dani Busboom Kelly. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

That was a turbulent time for sure. A very turbulent three or four days with other stuff going on as well. We had to make some recruiting decisions back then, and then the boss changes and we're talking about deciding to go over to Italy to go watch a certain player that I think you guys know who I'm talking about now and seeing how that's going to go.

I’ll be honest, when there's a head coaching change, you may get through the first portal window and nobody's decided to go in the portal, which was awesome. And then head coaching change comes, 30 days starts from whenever John [Cook] officially retires. We made it through then. And we do a beach volleyball season. [Dani] gets announced, but she's not officially here yet; she goes back to Louisville, she's moving the family out. She's coming back and forth because obviously they're working on buying a house. So, she's here for three or four days during the week and goes back home over the weekends.

We’re working with me, Kelly, and coach Brennan Hagar, who's now our third assistant. So that was another change that also happened this spring. There's so many changes that it's like, man, they just all got kind of got pushed down the list with the John Cook-Dani switch.

Then we have a really, really awesome beach season. Went a lot of matches, got to travel to some pretty cool places. Went down to Stetson in Orlando. Got some really, really competitive matches there. Played a bunch more actually outside this year in Lincoln, which was kind of cool to see it being 70 degrees here in February or March. Awesome trip to Hawaii and California. By then coach Dani Busboom Kelly was with us for the Hawaii portion of the trip.

Former Nebraska Cornhuskers volleyball head coach. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

And then I think one of the big things for us is just was when we started indoor right? Typically, coach Cook in the past hasn't been super involved with beach in terms of the day to day training and who plays with who, and who plays with what slots, and stuff like that. So that was kind of very similar if I'm being upfront. But once we got into indoor, that's where a lot of the changes happened; us assistants, some of us coaching different positions, to obviously having a new assistant coach. So just having a new lead voice in the gym, which is a big deal just because obviously coach Cook's resume and his pedigree in the gym kind of speaks for itself. And having Dani here has been, it was a transition for sure for everybody.

And I think “transition” always has a negative connotation. It was just different. Starting with me, it was way different from, “what does John like versus Dani? What position am I coaching? What drills were doing?” Sometimes the duration of practices and the flow of practices were very different. As similar as they are, it was different. I think spring was great. We had a bunch of new players in the gym. had a big freshman class join us.

“It was a football level of transition”

Jeff: Nobody left in the transfer portal, which is not the norm when you have a coaching change in college volleyball. Were you worried when this announcement happened that anyone was going to leave, even though you were bringing in someone that was known to the program, that was known to the fan base who has a super high level of success?

Jaylen: If I was saying no, I'd be lying to you. If you asked me, am I surprised now that nobody [left], I would say no, I'm not surprised. Not just on the Nebraska side of things. Look at the Louisville side and just how it was handled by both schools. I'm a big, “hey, show me” person to a degree. Everyone talks about, even in recruiting talks, “hey, this school cares about volleyball. Trust me, it cares about volleyball.”

Nebraska Cornhuskers Athletic Director Troy Dannen. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

I give a big kudos to the school, starting with Troy [Dannen] and President [Jeffrey] Gold and just making this transition. It was a football level of transition in terms of coach letting everyone know he's retiring that day. I think coach Cook has talked about the backstory of when he decided and started to have these conversations. Of course, they tied Dani in and obviously I knew they tied Dan Meske in, and obviously the Louisville administration had to be tied in as well.

You don't really see that in our sport. You see it where a coach steps down and there's this grace period. You guys have probably seen this year, there's been other schools that have handled head coaching changes differently. And, and it hasn't been as a seamless in terms of what the roster looks like. That’s not a fault of anybody's. It's just, is what it is. And I felt like the fact that not just Nebraska, but the fact that Louisville also did the same thing where, to my knowledge, they didn't have anybody leave at the time during that spring period.

The changes coming to volleyball

Jeff: What's the biggest change that [the House settlement] brings about in the program that changes scholarships?

Jaylen: Well, it can be good and bad, right? There's negative and positive consequences to everything, right? I'll say this, not every school is choosing to have 18 scholarships. Some teams might not even have 18 players on the team. Some schools might still say, “hey, you only have 13 or 14. We're not gonna give you the full 18.” So this is not everyone is going to be playing this game of 18 scholarships.

I don't even feel like we're having the scholarship talk. It's more, how many spots we have on the team and you can cover their financial aid because that's how many spots we have. So I guess when I first got here, with 12 scholarships, if you typically have two setters on scholarship, if you have four outsides, and two opposites, you're already at eight. So if you have a libero or two, you're already at ten. So then, if you have two middles and two liberos, that's already your 12 scholarships. So you typically want another libero or DS. You might want a third setter. You might want another pin position player to get to seven, or you want a fourth middle or third or fourth middle.

Nebraska Cornhuskers outside hitter Harper Murray. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

So you kind of had to get creative with how you did the scholarships where maybe a libero who's a junior is on a full ride. The freshman has two for four, what we used to call it, where freshman and sophomore year, she wouldn't be on scholarship. And then when the junior would graduate, she would get a scholarship. Or your third middle is not on scholarship for freshman year and then she's on starting the second semester of her freshman year, so you had to be a little more creative with that with the 12 scholarships.

Versus now, I can only speak for us, I don't know what other schools are necessarily doing because you don't necessarily know what they have, but now it's almost like, "okay how many roster spots do we have?"

What kind of adjustments have there been?

Lincoln: The assistant coaching positions have changed a little bit too. It's not like you're only coaching the outside hitters, but you're their kind of primary point of contact too. Has that been an adjustment to kind of get used to that? Are you running different drills in practice or is it kind of a collaborative effort?

Jaylen: Collab for sure. And I think to your point Lincoln, for those that might know, I've never been on a football staff, so I don't want to pretend like I know football, but I doubt the quarterback's coach is spending much time over there coaching the outside linebackers. Volleyball is way more collaborative. Because for example, I'm running our defense. Everyone on our team is going to play some sort of defense, whether you're blocking or you're playing back row defense, so there you get coached by everybody.

I think the fact that I've coached the middle of the last and I've worked with passers. The last couple of years I've done liberos and middles, which is funny because they're like the two opposite positions, but then, I help with the passers. So I've felt like I've worked with Harper and I've worked with [Teraya Sigler]. I mean, I've worked with T before I've worked with Taylor, so I think a lot of it is just the adjustment.

And I think it's really good for us coaches too, to like not get pigeonholed.

Watch the entire interview, and episode, below!

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