Takeaways From Nebraska Volleyball's Red-White Scrimmage

Lincoln: That's what you want for your middle blockers, too. It was all led by Rebekah Allick, who had the most kills of the match with 16. But then, I thought Andi Jackson had maybe a quiet nine kills too, and still hit .400. Another “average day” at the office for Andi Jackson.

But I thought two of the bigger newcomers that really made an impact were both other middle blockers. We talked to Kenna Cogill; she came to the press conference, and we were able to talk to her about her experience. And then Manaia Ogbechie as well. I thought she looked really good. She was a lot more physically present at the net with her block. But they all looked good, too.

And I think Nebraska has to feel very good about not only having two potential All-Americans in Allick and Jackson, but two quality subs should; they need a break, because it's a long season at middle blocker, and that position takes a physical toll on them.

Jeff: Well, I think you could really tell that both of the setters were working hard to get the ball to the middles. You saw Bergen Reilly go up a couple of times on a tight pass and do a one-handed back set, which is a little bit of a high-risk play, but she was trying to get the ball to Allick. And of course, the slide to Jackson's always going to be there. And then a fair amount of those kills, I don't have it all charted, but maybe, you know, four or five of those from the middles came on overpasses. Rebekah Allick is especially going to punish those overpasses when she's in the front row.

Cogill, I thought, was interesting. She was, dare I say, the least heralded of the newcomers coming in, just because Nebraska has some really outstanding middles. And she came in and she put balls down with authority, right? Like she was quick off the floor. She had a whip arm swing. She worked really well with the setters. And then that comment that Rebekah Allick made, sitting next to her, just about how much of a polished or mature attacker she was on some sets.

You know, the Red-White [scrimmage] is interesting, because everyone kind of knows your tendencies and the numbers usually are never that outstanding. But she said, you know, the blockers were kind of closing in on a set to Cogill and she just adjusted and hit it off to the side and dropped a shot in there. Which is not something you always see out of a freshmen player. So, Rebekah Allick maybe it stole the show from everyone else. But everyone else was very solid too.

Does Nebraska have the best setter group in the country?

Jeff: I think Dani Busboom Kelly kind of backed this up a little bit in her post-game; you would love it if one of those setters was head and shoulders better than the other on Saturday. And I don't know that they really were. And I don't know that that's an indictment of either of them. I think it's just that Nebraska has two really good setters.

And yesterday was the second time I'd heard Dani Busboom Kelly say this. She goes, “We think we have the best setter group in the country.” I don't know if either of those would make a claim to being the best setter in the country, but between the two of them, they make up the strongest unit.

However, it's like the quarterback position. You can only play one of them at a time. And I still don't know that they're going to go with a 6-2. They might do some things that look like a 6-2 throughout the year if they've got some situational substitutions.

Lincoln: Reilly's team had a better hitting percentage of .189 to [Campbell] Flynn's .186. They both stayed on the same team the whole time. Both those are not great. I did ask Dani if she was worried about both teams hitting under .200. She wasn't, which I guess again goes back to what you said earlier. There [are] tendencies that are known and not a lot of surprises you can do to catch the other team off guard.

But I thought that we saw some really good stuff, but also some scratching your head; “who was that intended to?” Or “that it would have been better if that set was maybe a little faster or a little higher. It wasn't on the mark.”

Jeff: I try not to be too critical of the setters because if you’re setting 100 balls a match or something like that, not all of them are gonna be a pinpoint location. And Nebraska's pin hitters still need to, and know, middles, too, for that matter, need to figure out how to score without having a perfect set. You’ve gotta expand your hitter range. And I thought we saw Virginia Adriano score some big kills when she had the ball right on the money,  but then if it was low,  she put it right into the block. And I think Nebraska's hitters can show a little bit more flexibility.

But you know, kinda like I said when we were talking about the middles, Reilly was trying some stuff that I hadn't seen her really try before. She was being brave and going up with one hand.  They were mixing in the middles. It's not like one player got 45 swings in this four-set match.  And so, Reilly to me is still steadier in the all-around parts of her game. She's a better back row defender, which you would expect for someone who's spending their third year in the program.

Is this the deepest Nebraska team ever?

Jeff: To me, it's hard to say. It's one of the biggest rosters ever, right? They have 17 players on this roster, and usually they never had more than like 14. You know, I could go all the way back and think of 2007 and 2006; the ‘06 team had players on the bench who would have started at many other programs. But this is the first time Nebraska's probably had two number one recruiting classes on its roster at the same time. And so, ultimately, you can't judge this until probably four years from now, but there's going to be some really, really good players who are not on the court when the season opener starts.

Lincoln: Yeah. And I think they're able to do that too, because this is the first year they've been able to go above 12 scholarships. Where a lot of them, [we] were talking about a lot of those deep teams. They had to do it with just 12 scholarships and maybe find some diamonds in the rough with walk-ons.

Jeff: There's not like five walk-ons on this team.

Lincoln: No. Nebraska has had 17 players. I think I looked this up, and sometime like in ‘12 or ‘13 they did. But again, they did not match the depth. There would be people on this [podcast] like, “I don't remember a couple of these players;” pretty anonymous names, just passed through the program fairly quickly. But this [team] has a couple of number one classes; a number two or three class. And so it's loaded with elite prospects everywhere.

Jeff: Yeah. What some programs used to do if they just had really big rosters, Wichita State comes to mind. They would always do this; they'd roll into Lincoln in the first round of the NCAA tournament with like 21 players, but they'd have like six walk-on DSs who just wanted to play college volleyball. And Nebraska never did that. Like John Cook didn't want to run into a situation where he had to disappoint too many people by telling them that they weren't going to play. And so Nebraska always ran lean in that area.

Watch the entire episode below, which includes a look at all the positions on Nebraska's 2025 team!

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