The 2024-2025 NCAA volleyball season kicked off at the beginning of September, and initial rankings seemed set in stone. However, heads started turning when top teams began a losing streak to unranked squads.
The University of Texas, back-to-back National Champions, began the season at No. 1 and started its season in Wisconsin for the State Farm Women’s College Volleyball Showcase, where the team first took on a No. 3 ranked Wisconsin team and won.
The concern began the following day when the Longhorns took on No. 18 Minnesota and lost. Confidence was high that Texas would bounce back when it returned to Austin to take on Miami — yet it fell to the unranked Hurricanes, which is when people began to wonder what was happening in the world of volleyball.
The Longhorns are not the only victims of the seemingly random losing bug. The University of Nebraska began its season ranked No. 2, started off at a strong 3-0, then traveled to Dallas to take on then-unranked SMU. The Mustangs swept the Cornhuskers, then defeated No. 18 Baylor in Waco to earn their first ranking at the No. 22 spot.
The question remains: what is happening? There is no honest answer to this, but the surprising aspect has to do with how dominant these teams usually are. Texas and Nebraska both have the top recruits in the country, so losing is not something they are accustomed to.
The Longhorns currently sit at No. 8 — speaking to the strength of their program that anything outside of a top-five ranking is considered poor — with a .500 winning percentage thanks to a recent loss to undefeated Stanford. Nebraska’s only loss of the season is to SMU, which begs another question: has the ACC taken over as the top conference in volleyball?
It may be time for a new dynasty to take over. Pittsburgh holds the No. 1 spot this week, with Stanford at No. 2; members of the ACC in the top-25 are rounded out by No. 4 Louisville, No. 13 Georgia Tech, No. 18 Florida State and No. 22 SMU.
The Tigers have a tough slate ahead of them thanks to the newfound ferocity of the ACC. They face Pitt, Louisville and SMU consecutively, followed by a Georgia Tech double-header in October. They are the first Clemson squad to travel to their west coast opponents when they visit Stanford in November and will be tested again upon their return to the east with back-to-back meetings against Miami and Florida State.
With so many dominant forces in the conference, we may see an ACC team win the NCAA Volleyball National Championship for the first time in December.
