Sorry Football, Nebraska is Officially a Volleyball School

Fan fodder is fan fodder.

Iowa has bad corn. Penn State was the bridesmaid of the old Big Ten East. Northwestern's the best team in the Big Ten...academically. Rutgers is proof that expansion isn't always a good thing. The list goes on, and most of the tongue-in-cheek insults lead to their fair share of chuckles at tailgates ahead of every football game. However, the most common hit on Nebraska is more accurate than the football team might like.

Nebraska is a volleyball school.

GM.

Nebraska is a Volleyball School.#NebraskaIsAVolleyBallSchool pic.twitter.com/P9htzWJntW
— Hoony. (@Hoon_Lounge) October 7, 2023

It happened slowly, but consistently. 24 years ago, Nebraska took on Miami in the Rose Bowl for a chance at a fourth national championship in eight years and first since 1997. If you told those Husker fans in Pasadena that it would be the last time Nebraska would even sniff a national championship for the next quarter century, they would have laughed you right back to Lincoln. However, what's happened since that championship game loss has been no laughing matter.

The very next season was a heck of a bandaid rip. After the championship loss to end Nebraska's 11-2 season, Nebraska followed that up with a 7-7 campaign. The stark contrast was a jolt, but anybody clad in red figured it was likely a one-off and the team would be "back" the next season.

The 2003 season resumed the confident swagger with a 10-3 mark and a 17-3 Alamo Bowl win over Michigan State. Then came the unthinkable in 2004 - a 5-6 season and the first missed bowl game in 35 years, snapping the longest consecutive bowl game appearance streak in the nation. What followed next has been 20 years is hard to look at, but here we go.

YEAR	RECORD
2005	8-4
2006	9-5
2007	5-7
2008	9-4
2009	10-4
2010	10-4
2011	9-4
2012	10-4
2013	9-4
2014	9-4
2015	6-7
2016	9-4
2017	4-8
2018	4-8
2019	5-7
2020	3-5
2021	3-9
2022	4-8
2023	5-7
2024	7-6

Can anyone spot the Pelini years? Me too...me too.

From 2014-2024, Nebraska football went 59-73. Those 73 losses in the past decade sting for a fan base that saw Nebraska lose only 76 games from 1968-2001. Last season, Nebraska sported its first winning record since 2016, when dabbing was still cool (sort of), we were on the iPhone 7 and #FreeHarambe was trending globally. It's been a minute.

In total since 2005, Nebraska football went 138-113. Nearly two full decades of .500 football with the "good years" being front-loaded on that stretch. So, what did the volleyball team decide to do during what many would say is the downfall of the Husker football program?

Nebraska Volleyball — The Nebraska volleyball team celebrates a point. | Amarillo Mullen

For starters, the volleyball team appeared in the national championship match in 2005, 2006, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023. In those seven appearances, the Big Red won three titles (2006, 2017 and 2015). This means they either ended the season as the best or second-best volleyball team in the country 35% of the past two decades - not bad.

The records on the non-championship appearance years weren't exactly horrific either. Since 2005 (remember, NU football went 138-113), Nebraska volleyball's combined record is 568-92. If Nebraska volleyball having fewer losses over the last 20 years isn't bad enough, the win percentages shake out to .549% for football and .860% for volleyball. It's not close.

However, it's one thing to have success in what still to this day is viewed as a vastly less popular sport than the powerhouse that is college football in America. It's completely another to go toe-to-toe with revenue and ultimately national attention with what used to be the most dominant football brand in the country back in the 1990s. That's where things get even more interesting.

Nebraska Football — The Huskers celebrated the 400th consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium. | Amarillo Mullen

We all know Nebraska leads all of college football with 403 consecutive sellouts and counting. What might not be as well known is that the volleyball team is catching up. They also hold the longest sellout streak in their respective sport with 306 consecutive sellouts. As if that record isn't sacred enough for the volleyball team to eventually surpass, I bet you can guess who now holds the Memorial Stadium attendance record. Yep - the volleyball team.

"Volleyball Day in Nebraska" couldn't have been more successful. The weather (in Nebraska no less!) was perfect, the stadium was packed to the brim with a record 92,003 fans and four different Nebraska volleyball teams took center stage. It was historic, took over the ESPN Sportscenter coverage that night and forwarded the entire sport of college volleyball in the national landscape - so much so, that we get to the ultimate turning point of why Nebraska really is a volleyball school.

Nebraska volleyball players celebrate a point at Maryland. | Nebraska Athletics

The Husker volleyball team is a traveling show, and the national television cameras are following them. I suppose that can happen when you win 86% of your matches over a 20-year stretch. In 2023, a boiling point statistic came out. The Nebraska football team was in the midst of a 5-7 season, their seventh-straight year of five wins or less. Meanwhile, the Nebraska volleyball team was en route to a 33-2 season that eventually ended with the heartbreaking loss to Texas in the national championship.

On October 21, 2023, the Nebraska football team beat Northwestern 17-9 in front of a national audience via the Big Ten Network. That same day in the same city with the same Big Ten Network cameras on them, the No. 2 Nebraska volleyball team hosted top-ranked Wisconsin and knocked off the Badgers in a five-set thriller, and that wasn't the only upset of the night.

FINAL: Nebraska 17, Northwestern 9.

Matt Rhule admits it wasn't a pretty game. But the #Huskers win coming off the bye week. Record improves to 4-3. pic.twitter.com/NV7Gd7KKeW
— Kevin Sjuts (@kevinsjuts) October 21, 2023

When the Big Ten Network ratings came out the following day, it was revealed that the Husker volleyball match drew 612,000 viewers across the country, while the Nebraska-Northwestern football game brought in around 560,000.

Could some of that be contributed to the seating capacity discrepancy of the Bob Devaney Sports Center and Memorial Stadium? Absolutely. Could you point to the fact that it was No. 1 vs. No. 2 in volleyball compared to two bottom-feeding teams of the Big Ten battling it out in football? Understandably so.

But for a sport that has perennially been under-represented nationally by the major networks and inherently the media that covers them, that day was a major shift. It's a shift that eventually led to "Volleyball Day in Nebraska." It's a shift that has opened the door for far more than just Nebraska volleyball.

Just eight days after the volleyball team earned better TV ratings than their football counterparts, Fox picked up the Wisconsin-Minnesota match on October 29. It became the most watched volleyball match ever that night, averaging 1.66 million viewers.

Coach Busboom Kelly smiles after a rally on the court. — Coach Dani Busboom-Kelly smiles after a rally on the court during Nebraska's spring match against Kansas in Ord, Neb. | Amarillo Mullen

First serve of the 2025 Nebraska Volleyball season (Friday, August 22 vs. Pittsburgh in Lincoln) and kickoff of the Nebraska football season (Thursday, August 28 vs. Cincinnati in Kansas City) are officially less than two months away. Both of them have exciting starts to the season, and we already know at least the football game will be nationally televised on ESPN.

How the upcoming seasons go for both teams is anyone's best guess (Lord knows we'll make our fair share of predictions here at HuskerMax), but as we work our way into the fall, it's okay to embrace the fact that Nebraska is a volleyball school. My HuskerMax colleague Dave Feit will back me up.

When people say Nebraska is a volleyball school, own it with pride. https://t.co/GoEO1k7I9D
— Dave Feit (@FeitCanWrite) September 3, 2024

Nebraska volleyball is a brand..a standard of excellence that transcends the sport. That used to be Nebraska football and can be again, but they'll need to earn that spotlight, title and reputation back. They can start by heading over to "The Bob" for some pointers.

Nebraska Volleyball 2025 Schedule

Aug. 9 Red-White Scrimmage
Aug. 16 Alumni Match
Aug. 22 vs. Pittsburgh (AVCA First Serve Showcase at Pinnacle Bank Arena)
Aug. 24 vs. Stanford (AVCA First Serve Showcase at Pinnacle Bank Arena)
Aug. 29 at Lipscomb
Aug. 31 vs. Kentucky (Broadway Block Party in Nashville)
Sept. 5 vs. Wright State
Sept. 7 vs. California
Sept. 12 vs. Utah
Sept. 13 vs. Grand Canyon
Sept. 16 at Creighton
Sept. 20 vs. Arizona
Sept. 24 vs Michigan
Sept. 27 vs. Maryland
Oct. 3 at Penn State
Oct. 4 at Rutgers
Oct. 10 vs. Washington
Oct. 12 at Purdue
Oct. 17 at Michigan State
Oct. 19 at Michigan
Oct. 24 vs. Northwestern
Oct. 25 vs. Michigan State
Oct. 31 at Wisconsin
Nov. 2 vs. Oregon
Nov. 6 vs. Illinois
Nov. 8 at Minnesota
Nov. 14 at UCLA
Nov. 15 at USC
Nov. 20 vs. Iowa
Nov. 22 at Indiana
Nov. 28 vs. Penn State
Nov. 29 vs. Ohio State

Nebraska Football 2025 Schedule

Aug. 28 (Thursday) vs. Cincinnati (Kansas City) 8 p.m. CDT on ESPN
Sep. 6 vs. Akron 6:30 p.m. CDT on BTN
Sep. 13 vs. Houston Christian 11 a.m. CDT on FS1
Sep. 20 vs. Michigan 2:30 p.m. CDT on CBS
Oct. 4 vs. Michigan State 11/2:30/3 CDT
Oct. 11 at Maryland TBA
Oct. 17 (Friday) at Minnesota 7 p.m. CDT on FOX
Oct. 25 vs. Northwestern TBA
Nov. 1 vs. USC TBA
Nov. 8 at UCLA TBA
Nov. 22 at Penn State TBA
Nov. 28 (Black Friday) vs. Iowa 11 a.m. CST on CBS

Home games are bolded.

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