CHICAGO – The usual superlatives are no longer enough for John Cook. Not anymore.
The four-time Big Ten Coach of the Year and three-time American Volleyball Coaches Association National Coach of the Year has won numerous awards as Nebraska’s head coach. He knows how to win.
When he says it will be tough to compete in the Big Ten this season, that’s not just the usual coaching talk.
In fact, Cook wants some recent awards to reflect this.
“I don’t think anyone is going to go undefeated, let’s put it that way,” Cook said. “And if they do, they deserve the Coach of the Century and Team of the Century awards because it’s going to be a real challenge.”
The Big Ten’s realignment has now added Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA to the team. This move followed the move of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC and was a death sentence for the Pac-12.
In a conference that now stretches from coast to coast, the focus has been on soccer. But soccer is far from the most exciting thing to come out of the recent realignment.
Through this realignment, the Big Ten has created a powerful volleyball conference that is the best conference in all of college sports.
“It just makes our conference so much stronger,” Purdue head coach Dave Shondell said. “That’s what we’re trying to do in the Big Ten, to be the best.”
The Big Ten has been a volleyball stronghold for decades.
Since 2000, there have been only five years in which the Big Ten has not had a representative in the volleyball tournament’s Final Four. In nine of those years, Big Ten teams won the national championship.
Nebraska made it to the Final Four in the early 2000s, but I didn’t count then because they weren’t an official Big Ten team at the time. If you want to count Nebraska (and you’re welcome to), there’s only one year the Big Ten didn’t have a representative in the Final Four.
That’s not just good. It’s almost unheard of. Such consistency in the Final Four is every conference’s dream.
TAMPA, FLORIDA – DECEMBER 14: The Nebraska Cornhuskers celebrate during the Division I women’s volleyball semifinal against the Pittsburgh Panthers at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Now that the four West Coast schools are on the team, the Big Ten can boast 15 more Final Four appearances between Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA.
In 2023, four Big Ten teams won 20 or more games and earned a top-25 ranking. The PAC-12 had four teams with 20 or more wins and five teams in the top 25. Of those nine ranked teams, eight finished the regular season in the top 16.
In other words, buckle up.
The Big Ten volleyball season will feature matchups that have three times the pull of an average Big Ten football game, considering how much is at stake in each game. Like football, Big Ten volleyball plays each team once and that’s it. The next time they see the same conference opponent for a rematch could be the NCAA Tournament.
The idea of USC facing Michigan or Oregon facing Ohio State in football is reason enough to make anyone want to fast forward to the fall. Imagine that, but almost every week for Big Ten volleyball.
This is not an exaggeration. This will happen.
“That’s the direction our sport is going. People are starting to understand how different the styles are and they want to see those matchups,” Oregon coach Matt Ulmer said. “Now, all of a sudden, I think we’re going to get some of those fantasy matchups and we’re going to get them on a regular basis.”
First, there are many things that need to be worked out, such as the travel burden the conference expects for its volleyball athletes. Some teams will travel coast to coast just to play a conference game in September.
The Big Ten has found a solution to this by having teams from the Midwest or East Coast play two teams from the West Coast one after the other. This way, travel is reduced and players don’t spend more time in the air than playing.
“I’m a firm believer that scheduling in sports needs to be continually reevaluated, and I expect that over the next few years we’ll hopefully get a lot more right with the way we’ve designed and scheduled the games,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Pettiti said at Big Ten Football Media Days. “It’s our responsibility and our job to listen to the student-athletes and coaches to make sure we adapt and make the necessary changes.”
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – JULY 26: Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti during Big Ten Conference Media Days on July 26, 2023 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN (Photo by James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Keeping volleyball front and center is of utmost importance to the Big Ten. Outside of the Big Ten, no other conference has held a media day for their volleyball teams, and that’s because the Big Ten knows how important volleyball is.
One need only look at Nebraska throughout the year, where last year the Huskers’ Volleyball Day in Nebraska set a world record for attendance in women’s sports: 92,003 spectators attended an exhibition match at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, between the Huskers and the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
This was one of the highlights of the rising popularity of women’s sports that the Big Ten has experienced with Caitlin Clark’s final season at Iowa in the 2023-2024 basketball season.
The Big Ten has a chance to increase the excitement even further this volleyball season.
And this isn’t just for casual fans. The biggest volleyball fans will get to watch a league with different playing styles for three months as the Big Ten combines athletic West Coast volleyball strategies with great defensive strategies like Nebraska’s in the same league.
“We’re going to see teams play against each other that we haven’t seen a lot,” Nebraska junior setter Kennedi Orr said. “When I was growing up, a lot of teams won national championships, like UCLA and Washington, and now we get to see them integrated into the Big Ten, and I think that’s really cool. I haven’t seen a lot of Big Ten games like the West Coast teams have in the past. I’m just really excited to compete. It’s going to be a crazy year.”
Insanity is right. At the end of the day, someone has to win a Big Ten championship.
Who will that be? Stay tuned to find out.
These will be the best volleyball games you will see outside of Paris this year.
“This is going to bring out the best in us and we’re going to do our best,” Cook said. “It’s exciting for college sports.”
