With national audience, Texas-Nebraska set to make NCAA volleyball history in 2023 title game

AUSTIN (KXAN) — When the Texas Longhorns meet the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Sunday for the NCAA volleyball championship, more eyes than ever before will be on them.

For the first time, the match will be broadcast on network television at 2 p.m. CT on ABC, exposing the game to a potential record-breaking audience across the country. It has been a banner year for women's volleyball as far as match attendance and television viewership go, and both Texas coach Jerritt Elliott and Nebraska coach John Cook know this is a pivotal moment.

"It's a special moment to be able to have a Texas-Nebraska game on ABC on national television to really blow it out of the park," Elliott said. "This is probably the biggest moment we've ever had. It's a moment that -- for ABC to see where the sport is growing to pick it up on football Sunday is pretty special."

Cook said ABC airing sports on a national stage stems from the iconic Wide World of Sports brand, something he wasn't sure any of his players even knew about.

"ABC was the sports channel that you'd always watch for big-time sports," he said. "So to me it's a big deal, but our players probably have no clue what ABC is, but it is big time."

Nebraska junior outside hitter Merritt Beason said no matter which network airs the game, she's happy the sport she loves is getting the national audience treatment.

"I think for us it was more about just being on national television and having that opportunity," she said. "Less about exactly what site it was on and more of just the opportunity to be playing a National Championship on national TV."

And for the record, she said she knows what ABC is.

The national semifinals aired Thursday on ESPN, and both matches averaged 1.1 million viewers, the highest-rated NCAA volleyball semifinal matches ever on an ESPN platform according to ESPN PR. Nearly 20,000 people showed up at Amalie Arena for the matches, breaking the NCAA attendance record for indoor volleyball at 19,598. Nebraska hosted Omaha for a match in August that drew a world-record 92,003 fans at Memorial Stadium, the most fans ever to see a women's sporting event live

There's also a professional volleyball league set to start in 2024, and the first player selected in the REAL Pro Volleyball draft was Texas middle blocker Asjia O'Neal. She said she's proud to be part of making volleyball grow across the country.

"I think it's honestly so exciting that we have these opportunities to play here in America. I think this is the perfect time for it as we've discussed the sport's blowing up," she said. "With this game on ABC, hopefully it brings a lot of viewers and a lot of eyes on the sport."

Match features two freshmen setters

Both teams have true freshmen setters who know each other's games quite well. Texas' Ella Swindle said she was roommates with Nebraska's Bergen Reilly while they were at national team tryouts.

"She's definitely a great competitor, great player," Swindle said. "It will be fun to have two freshmen setters going against each other. So, yeah, super excited."

Reilly said they are "great friends."

"She's a great setter," Reilly said of Swindle, "so it will be a good test for us tomorrow."

Elliott said thanks to better coaching at the club level, freshmen step into the college game better prepared to handle the speed and complexity of the game. That's just another way that volleyball is growing, he said.

"The type of athletes that we're getting, the sooner they're getting into the USA model and training with USA in the gym. There's a lot of things where athletes are coming out a little bit more proficient," he said.

Cook said Bergen is just the second freshman to start at setter in his 23 years of coaching.

"Club volleyball is doing a great job of preparing these kids," Cook said. "Those coaches have gotten better, and there's more players across the country, and the competition for them is great."

With Swindle, Elliott tried not to put too much on her plate immediately and let her grow into the role.

"I still remember the conversations Ella and I had early on, there's a lot of pressure coming in as a quarterback to set a team that just won a National Championship," he said. "You feel all the responsibility. For me, I was trying to tone that down with Ella and tell her she was going to fail a lot and we were going to catch her, and she wasn't going to be perfect every night. So setting the expectations where she could just grow."