Texas And Nebraska's Longstanding Volleyball Rivalry Will Renew In Las Vegas

On Sunday afternoon, Texas’ and Nebraska’s women’s volleyball teams will face each in the regular season for the first time in a decade.

There wasn't this kind of gap between matches before, however: the Longhorns and Huskers have an intense rivalry spanning decades, tied in part to the creation of the Big 12.

At the Players Era Volleyball Showcase in Las Vegas on Aug.

30, the two will jump right into the new season by renewing that rivalry.

Nebraska and Texas had their first meeting back in 1981, less than 10 years after each program had begun, and just like on Sunday, it was hosted in neutral territory.

The two played a pair of matches in the Oral Roberts Invitational on Oct.

17, with Texas winning both: the Longhorns would eventually be crowned the 1981 champions in the final season playing under the Associate for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women banner (AIAW), while the Huskers’ program was already part of the NCAA at this point; 1981 would mark the lone campaign that the team wasn’t invited to the 20-team NCAA Division I tournament at the end of the regular season, and this despite its fourth-straight unbeaten season in Big 8 conference play.

In the 1982 Oklahoma Invitational, Nebraska would collect its first win against Texas, 3-1, but that would be the last victory for the Huskers against the Longhorns until Nov.

5, 1988 — both teams were already powerhouses by then, with Nebraska losing in the national championship in 1986 to Pacific, and Texas winning its second title later in ‘88.

Nebraska would once again lose the national championship game in 1989, this time to Long Beach State — it took until 1995 for that to change… and against Texas.

That squad, led by First-Team All-American and American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Co-Player of the Year Allison Weston, was playing for more than just a championship in the moment.

It was also playing for bragging rights within a soon-to-be-formed conference.

For the 1995 championship, Nebraska was representing the Big 8, and Texas the Southwest Conference, but that was a temporary arrangement: Texas was one of four schools that had committed, back in Feb.

1994, to join the Big 8 and make it the Big 12 in 1996.