Husker Big Red Daily: Husker volleyball takeaways, 2nd-half predictions for Nebraska football

Welcome to Husker Big Red Daily, your daily stop for the latest Nebraska football news, recruiting buzz, transfer portal updates, and Huskers headlines. Here’s a quick look at the latest storylines surrounding Nebraska athletics.

For the 10th time in the history of the Nebraska volleyball program, the Huskers started 20-0.

Nebraska reached that mark after a dominant 3-0 win over the UCLA Bruins on Thursday night, sweeping them 25-19, 25-11, 25-16.

UCLA was red-hot coming into the match. The Bruins had won six in a row, including a win over Penn State last week. However, the Huskers were never challenged. Nebraska hit .380. UCLA hit .036.

Andi Jackson finished with 11 kills and six blocks. She also had a .625 hitting percentage. Bergen Reilly was credited with another double-double with 39 assists, 10 digs, four blocks, and three kills. It was the 48th double-double of her career.

The Huskers have won 51 straight regular-season matches, and here are three takeaways from another dominating win.

Andi Jackson is peaking and close to history

The Huskers are only nine matches through their conference season, but it’s hard to imagine Andi Jackson playing better than she is right now. She’s killing the ball at a high rate, dominating on defense, and is now just 13 kills away from becoming the fourth player in program history to reach 1,000 kills and 400 blocks.

Defense dominates as usual

Flat out, it’s just hard to kill the ball against Nebraska. Jackson and the block are part of that. So is Olivia Mauch, the libero. The defensive specialists just don’t let the ball hit the ground. That mentality was on display again as the Bruins hit .036.

Nebraska volleyball had 49 kills and 11 errors. UCLA finished with just 25 kills in three sets and 21 errors. That’s not a winning formula, at least not for the Bruins.

It is for Nebraska, which was stout defensively once again.

Bergen Reilly is playing like the Player of the Year

The Nebraska setter probably won’t get National Player of the Year, but she deserves Big Ten Player of the Year, at least based on what she’s done so far this season.

Not only does she run the Nebraska offense, but she is also second on the team in digs and fourth on the team in blocks. Reilly has one serve-receive error all season, as well as 14 service aces.

Reilly is doing it all right now. Harper Murray and Jackson deserve their flowers, too. All three deserve player of the year consideration, but Reilly is Nebraska’s best player right now.

Nebraska second-half record predictions

We wrote up our second-half predictions for the Huskers, predicting them to finish 9-3. We also looked back at seven things we learned through the first seven games.

Women’s basketball opener

The Nebraska women’s basketball team begins its season-long pursuit of a fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament bid by tipping off 2026-27 with an exhibition game against the Wayne State Wildcats on Friday, Oct. 23 at 6 p.m. (CT) at Pinnacle Bank Arena. – Huskers.com.

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