The Blackshirts

Volleyball

Volleyball at Wrigley: Nebraska Plays a First and a 47-Year Reunion in Three Days

A card reading Volleyball at Wrigley, noting the first volleyball match ever played at Wrigley Field and the DePaul and Missouri kickoff times, with Colonel Kernel holding a Blackshirts volleyball at the right.
Graphic by The Blackshirts

Husker fans, this is a strange and wonderful weekend, and the strange part is the one to circle.

On Sunday night, Nebraska plays Missouri at Wrigley Field. Not near it. In it. Volleyball has never been played there — not once, in over a century of that ballpark — and the Huskers are in the first one.

First, though, Chicago has something older waiting.

Friday: a series nobody alive has been asking about

Nebraska is at DePaul on Friday at 5 p.m. on FS1, at Wintrust Arena.

It is only the fifth meeting between the programs, and the Big Red lead the series 3-0-1.

Here’s the number. The last time these two played, Nebraska swept the Blue Demons — in 1979.

Forty-seven years. Jimmy Carter was president. There was no rally scoring, no Big Ten for Nebraska, and no NCAA volleyball championship the Huskers had ever won.

Sunday: the ballpark

Then it’s Missouri, 8 p.m., on FOX, in the Allstate Big Ten/SEC Volleyball Challenge — a new event putting all 18 Big Ten and all 16 SEC programs head-to-head, and finishing with a doubleheader at Wrigley.

Nebraska has done a lot of these. Since Volleyball Day in Nebraska in 2023, the Huskers have played in four different professional venues. Wintrust and Wrigley make five and six.

The series is not close: Nebraska leads Missouri 74-3-1 across 78 meetings. The last one was a sweep in the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

They are No. 1, and they have been there more than anyone

Nebraska sits No. 1 in the AVCA Coaches Poll released August 31, with 1,569 points and 57 of the 63 first-place votes. Pitt has the other six.

It is the Huskers’ 125th week all-time at No. 1 — the most of any program in the country.

What the first three matches looked like

Three matches, three sweeps. Nine sets, none lost.

The defense is the story. Nebraska is holding opponents to a .068 hitting percentage, fourth nationally and first in the Big Ten. For scale: last season the Huskers led the nation at .129 and became the first team since at least 2014 to finish first in both hitting percentage and opponent hitting percentage.

They are somehow being better than that right now.

And the one that never seems to move: Nebraska is 105-0 in sets under Dani Busboom Kelly when it reaches 20 points first. Not 105-2. Not 105-1. 105-0, and 9-0 this season.

One more, because it is genuinely remarkable — since 2021, Busboom Kelly is 156-16, a .907 winning percentage, the best of any Division I head coach in that stretch.

How to watch

  • Friday, 5 p.m. — at DePaul, FS1. Sloane Martin and Emily Ehman.
  • Sunday, 8 p.m. — vs. Missouri, FOX, at Wrigley Field. Connor Onion and Emily Ehman.
  • Both on the Huskers Radio Network with John Baylor and Lauren (Cook) West, plus Huskers.com and the Huskers app.

Husker fans, a 47-year-old series on Friday and a ballpark that has never seen a volleyball on Sunday. Get the FOX channel figured out before eight o’clock.

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