Iowa Volleyball Has Best Record in Years

At the beginning of this 2025-26 season for Iowa’s Volleyball squadron, most every onlooker shared the same expectation: mere survival, if even that much could be wished for.

After finishing last year’s campaign with a grueling 10-22 final record (5-11 at home, 2-10 on the road and 4-16 in conference play,) very little excitement carried over into this following year. Of course, that mindset didn’t apply to the Hawkeyes themselves, who quite clearly had something to prove.

Currently at 6-0, Iowa Volleyball is undefeated through such a period for the first time in 16 years, with the last time being the 2009 season. They’ve completely swept all but one of their opponents in continuous 3-0 routs, tearing through a non-conference schedule that, just one year prior, seemed far more daunting to a program that was out-of-step.

Now, only six games into the new season, the Hawkeyes have already more than halved their win total from last year’s 32-game composite. Better yet, the team still has three more matches prior to facing a single B10 opponent, expectedly allowing them to continue stacking wins before stiffer competition enters the fold.

Yet even then, regardless of the (somewhat fair) pessimism of the team’s general audience, who’s to say their newfound success can’t continue? Nothing about the team’s current convincing play suggests a fluke or one-off hot streak; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Everything about the state of Iowa Hawkeyes volleyball screams comeback season. From their aforementioned repeated domination to the team’s complete turnaround from last year’s soured reputation, nothing about 2025 feels like 2024… at least so far.

Then again, it’ll be a matter of tempering expectations. Fans can appreciate the Hawkeyes making history for the time without reaching for a full, complete flip from last year’s pattern. Could the team have an all-time season and turn the country on its head? Absolutely, but do they have to? Certainly not.

What matters is that the improvement under HC Jim Barnes continues, and that, when the losses do come, they don’t eclipse the progress in the win column. The team has one more day to bask in their historic achievement before being pressed with an opportunity to build on it on the road at Southeast Missouri State (3-3) tomorrow night.

Enjoy the ride for what it is, Hawkeyes fans, and support the athletes in black and gold for working hard to steady this ship.

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