Wisconsin stands between Texas volleyball and home.
Home refers to an event and not a physical building.
Article continues below this ad
Texas Longhorns head coach Jerritt Elliott cheers on his team as Texas volleyball plays Indiana in a Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament match in Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. The Longhorns will advance to Elite Eight with a 3-0 win.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Longhorns fans react as the 3rd set is tied as Texas volleyball plays Indiana in a Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament match in Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. The Longhorns will advance to Elite Eight with a 3-0 win.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Texas Longhorns outside hitter Torrey Stafford (4) jumps to spike the ball as Texas volleyball plays Indiana in a Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament match in Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. The Longhorns will advance to Elite Eight with a 3-0 win.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
The Final Four is mandatory for this program. Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center is the venue, but the national semifinals have served as Texas’ happy place for the last decade-plus. Anything else is a disappointment. The standard is the standard under coach Jerritt Elliott, who has handed down his smoldering intensity to the roster that comprises one of the country’s hottest teams.
Minutes after the Texas Longhorns dispatched upstart third-round opponent Indiana in quick order Friday at a packed Gregory Gymnasium in a Sweet 16 matinee, Elliott was still wearing his game face.
Article continues below this ad
The Longhorns celebrate defeating Indiana in a Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament match in Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. The Longhorns will advance to Elite Eight with a 3-0 win.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
TEXAS VS. WISCONSIN
When/where: 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Gregory Gymnasium.
TV/radio: ABC.
Sign up for Cedric Golden’s newsletter
Sign up for Cedric Golden’s newsletter for hot takes and expert analysis each Tuesday on Texas Longhorns football and beyond. It’s called Ced’s Corner, from the mind of the American-Statesman’s resident sports columnist.
Article continues below this ad
This is old hat for the most senior coach on campus. Elliott and Co. are three wins away from the program’s sixth national title, which would be the third in four seasons under his watch and his fourth overall. The Horns advanced to an 18th Elite Eight over the last 20 seasons and he made sure to hand out flowers to Longhorn Nation, his players and his wife Andrea, who stood beaming nearby.
TEXAS VOLLEYBALL: New home coming to Texas volleyball
Article continues below this ad
Becoming a volleyball blue blood doesn’t happen overnight and what Elliott has built after replacing Jim Moore in 2001 has stood the test of time in an athletic department that has undergone many changes the past two decades.
When he arrived, he was a pup in a department of established winners in traditional team sports like women’s basketball’s Jody Conradt, football’s Mack Brown, baseball’s Augie Garrido and basketball’s Rick Barnes, who took him to dinner not long after he got hired.
“Rick told me if you coach long enough, you’re going to get fired,” Elliott said. “So that’s added some memory for me. I lose a lot of sleep because I’m just always worried about it falling apart.”
MORE CEDDY:Where Texas volleyball star Cari Spears got her competitive spirt
Article continues below this ad
It hasn’t, though, because the sport consumes him. Elliott eats, drinks and breathes this thing. It’s the only way the program has maintained this excellence over such a long period. His is a healthy obsession that has produced the most sustained run of any team sport on campus and, arguably, in America.
“I think one of the challenging things as a coach is you’re either working to be able to develop it and you’re trying to get to a program to a certain standard, and then when you reach the standard … our standard here is the Final Four and national championships,” he said. “Those are the expectations. Anything short of that is obviously a tough season.”
He’s 25 years in at Texas and shows no signs of slowing down.
“I’m 57, but I feel like I’m 40 with these guys because they keep me young and have a good time with me,” Elliott said.
Article continues below this ad
Football and hoops gets more pub but volleyball is the gold standard on the Forty Acres.
TEXAS FOOTBALL:Two more Horns enter transfer portal, per report
Elliott told me during baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle’s introductory press conference that the high standards that run from sport to sport on campus had lit a fire under him, but his pilot light was never fully out because of the torrid winning pace he has set since breaking through for his first national title here in 2012.
Texas Longhorns outside hitter Cari Spears (23) celebrates a point as Texas volleyball plays Indiana in a Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament match in Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. The Longhorns will advance to Elite Eight with a 3-0 win.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
How Torrey Stafford and Co. took down the Hoosiers
Friday’s 25-20, 25-22, 25-22 sweep was wildly entertaining, but each set carried a familiar refrain: closely contested early, a Texas run in the middle to gain control, a brief Indiana rally and Texas closing it out being what Hoosiers’ coach Steve Aird called “the better team.”
Article continues below this ad
Texas’ winning tradition was what attracted All-America outside hitter Torrey Stafford when she decided to transfer here after two seasons at Pittsburgh. She’s the latest high flyer up front in a recent run of All-Americans that includes Asjia O’Neal, Madisen Skinner and Logan Eggleston, the most decorated player in program history.
Stafford has the look of the next great one, but that label can only come with a championship. Because it’s the standard.
TEXAS FOOTBALL: Texas fires RB coach Chad Scott, per report
“I would say my mindset is obviously to win every practice,” Stafford said. “I think we’re putting in a lot of focus for the teams that we’re playing and we talk about violence respectfully. That’s something that we’re embodying as a team right now this steep in the season I think that everyone is just really excited to continue to dance for this.”
Article continues below this ad
Texas Longhorns outside hitter Cari Spears (23), Texas Longhorns middle blocker Nya Bunton (55) and Texas Longhorns outside hitter Torrey Stafford (4) triple block a hit from Indiana Hoosiers outside hitter Candela Alonso-Corcelles (3) as Texas volleyball plays Indiana in a Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament match in Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. The Longhorns will advance to Elite Eight with a 3-0 win.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Stafford was, in a word, otherworldly against Indiana, with 19 kills and zero errors and a .679 hitting percentage in her greatest performance to date at Texas. She had plenty of help, particularly on the defensive side where the Horns totaled 12 blocks and held the Hoosiers to a .217 hitting percentage.
Stafford’s fingerprints were all over this one. She will be a problem in Sunday’s Wisconsin rematch, a Texas sweep at the Greg early this season.
The stakes are much higher this time around. The winner will book a ticket to KC.
Article continues below this ad
A winning culture embodies the brand
The name on the front of the jersey matters around here, and Elliott has engendered a sense of family with the understanding that he oversees a working meritocracy that places winning atop the priority list. As the transfer portal and NIL have become the norm, he has successfully adapted to the new way of doing business by adding players like Stafford — a national player of the year finalist — and Ramsey Gary, a former All-Big Ten libero at Indiana.
“It’s a culture thing,” Gary said. “When I got here, that was really important to play for my teammates. They pretty much ingrained that right from the start.”
The Longhorn (26-3) are on a collision course with their happy place after a fourth straight NCAA sweep, including wins over Penn State and Wisconsin, the only two schools beside Texas to win national titles since 2021. They have clearly rebounded from blowing a two-set lead in the SEC tourney championship match loss to Kentucky.
Article continues below this ad
Wisconsin won’t be easy. In advancing to their eighth straight regional final, the Badgers are one of only two teams that rank higher than Texas nationally in hitting percentage. Top-ranked Nebraska, which will play Texas A&M for shot at the Final Four, is the other.
Somehow, Elliott always has the Longhorns playing their best ball at the perfect time of the season.
“This is such a magical run that we’re on right now,” he said.
Article continues below this ad
They’ve been here before.