The kernel of an idea formed in a spring informal brainstorm. Nebraska’s volleyball coaches, including their new head coach, were kicking around notions of how to make the Huskers’ fall practice sessions go by without dragging.

Preseason No. 1 Nebraska was marked to open the season at the AVCA First Serve Showcase, three weeks after starting fall workouts on July 31. That was three weekends to fill. 

One would be taken up by the team’s annual Red-White Scrimmage, traditionally held the week before the season opener. But NU coaches felt the team needed more to break up the monotony of fall camp, even with the increased amount of practice scrimmaging Dani Busboom Kelly favors over her predecessor, John Cook.

In search of new blood to test a team with eight newcomers, Nebraska turned to, well…old bloods.

Hey, no bad ideas in a brainstorm, right?

“It was just a real short idea where we started asking around alumni who were still playing, and there was a lot of interest,” said NU assistant Kelly (Hunter) Natter.

The whole thing may not have come off if not for Natter, who will have a foot in both worlds Saturday during the 6 p.m. CDT exhibition at the Devaney Center. Having finished her college playing career in 2017, Natter’s not exactly being brought out of mothballs to be the alumni team’s starting setter. 

But being connected to multiple generations of Husker players – those who played with her, as well as those who came both before and after her – made Natter the nexus of Nebraska’s alumni outreach. The MVP? Her cell phone, and she put it to work calling and emailing former teammates like Kenzie Maloney Hoppes and Annika Albrecht Moulder, as well as former NU assistant Jordan Larson, a four-time Olympian who will play another professional season in 2026 with LOVB Nebraska.

Nebraska eventually got enough commitments from alumni players to bring the idea to fruition, which came as a bit of a shock to the current Huskers.

Call it a living history lesson for players like junior outside hitter Harper Murray. Evidence they’ve been smashing volleyballs and hanging banners around here for a long time.

“I was a little confused. I had heard comments made about it during our beach season, but I just didn’t think it was actually going to become a thing,” Murray said.

“Honestly, I barely know some of the people who are going to be playing with Kelly. It’ll be exciting, but it’s also going to be interesting. It’ll be the first time we have a true lineup out there and not mixing around as much.”

Busboom Kelly didn’t need to be sold too hard on the idea. She had floated doing an alumni scrimmage at Louisville. And though many of the faces will be familiar to the coach, who played with or coached many of the alumni team’s members as a Nebraska assistant from 2012-16, Saturday’s exhibition allows her to run things like a match against a true opponent.

And the Huskers have a doozy of an opener Friday, Aug. 22, against No. 3 Pittsburgh at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

“We’ll look at some potential lineups and be able to make changes within those lineups that we’d potentially make the following weekend,” Busboom Kelly said. “You can just learn a lot more. It’s an exhibition against another team that a lot of programs do this time of year. This is our version of that, except it’s against alumni, which makes it more fun for our fans.”

Fun for the participants, too. Murray said she recalled watching Maloney, a two-year starting libero who finished her college career in 2018, when Murray was in eighth grade and first beginning to dream of playing in college.

And Natter said she grew up idolizing Gina (Mancuso) Prososki, one of the alumni team’s outside hitters who shares Natter’s hometown of Papillion, Neb. Prososki played for the Huskers from 2009-12.

Other alumni players include outside hitters Ally Batenhorst and Lindsay Krause, and middle blockers Leyla Blackwell and Callie Schwarzenbach. The team will be coached by former Husker and current Omaha Skutt coach Renee Saunders.

But once the Huskers clear any stars from their eyes, it figures to be helpful business. While the Red-White Scrimmage allows coaches to evaluate individual players, the splitting of teams into two rosters means some players had to play roles they normally wouldn’t during the regular season.

The Alumni Match will be formatted like a regular best-three-out-of-five match, finally allowing the current Huskers to get reps against an opponent before facing another 2024 Final Four participant less than a week later.

“The depth is pretty amazing. Our practices are really tough. That’s just going to make us stronger in the end,” Busboom Kelly said. “That’s why I’m very excited to play against somebody else, even if it’s alumni this weekend, to really see how our eight players can perform together – seven or eight – without playing against each other. It’s very hard to tell how good we are, how good one individual is, because the line is so thin between our top outside and maybe our fourth outside. It’s razor thin.”

Saturday will be a chance to soak in a little Husker history, but provide maybe a more meaningful look at what matches could look like in the near future.

“You want to scrimmage because you want to see what lineups go well, who passes next to each other well, who can block together,” Murray said. “I think it’s smart on Dani’s part to have us play as much as we do just because we get to see and feel out our lineups and feel who we play next to.”

Trash talk? Or respect your elders?

With 17 players – one of the biggest rosters in program history – most of whom were star-studded recruits, there’s no shortage of bravado in Nebraska’s practices. 

But will that show its head on Saturday, or will the current Huskers have more of a “Respect thy elders” approach?

Natter’s ready for a stream of chatter when she’s on the opposing side of the net from her current charges.

“Being in the gym with these guys, they’re so competitive. They’re always talking smack to each other, and they’ll make little comments to me sometimes,” Natter said. “It’s really playful and really fun right from the start. I think it’ll be more joking competitiveness than serious, but I’m sure there will be some of those serious moments too.”

With a number of alumni players no longer playing regularly, some well past the end of their playing careers, Busboom Kelly said she’s heard a few of the alumni players might be hoping for a quick evening.

“I know there are some that are hoping it stays at three (sets), but I’m secretly hoping for a four-setter,” Busboom Kelly said. “We won’t be playing extra if it’s a sweep one way or the other.”

The alumni group hasn’t officially practiced, Natter said. But will be getting together to go over rotations on Saturday afternoon. Look for the alumni team to wear t-shirts instead of playing jerseys.

Setting a work in progress

Busboom Kelly said that after evaluating the Red-White Scrimmage, Nebraska’s setters Bergen Reilly and Campbell Flynn “have a lot of work to do” when it comes to location and tempo of sets to the pins, especially back sets to the right side of the court.

But, that’s nothing she didn’t expect two weeks into fall practice. Normally, the team would have another week of practice to refine those things before showing them to the public in the intrasquad scrimmage.

NU’s coach hasn’t been stingy with praise for her setting duo this fall, saying she thinks they’re the best unit in the country. They’re doing well at the things Busboom Kelly would hope at this point in the preseason – blocking, defense, and decision making. Consistency on the ball placement will come with more repetitions in the gym.

“They’re playing confident,” Busboom Kelly said. We already talked about their well-rounded games. Campbell has improved a ton from a defensive standpoint. A lot of those things you can’t really work on every day to get better at, we’re great. It’s the location and some of the tempo that we’ll continue to work on that’ll continue to get better and better the more we play and settle into a lineup.”

Quick sideouts

Busboom Kelly said Wednesday that while Nebraska doesn’t chart every serve in practice, libero Laney Choboy and freshman opposite hitter Virginia Adriano have stood out as servers in workouts. Adriano fired back-to-back aces in last weekend’s Red-White Scrimmage.

“We want to be one of the best serving and passing teams in the country,” she said. “Nebraska always is, and this team is no different. We want to continue to fine-tune that. That’s a pretty big priority going into the First Serve Showcase.”

Murray said the team celebrated senior middle blocker Rebekah Allick being named the team’s “Lifter of the Year” at the Red-White Scrimmage because of her dedication.

“She’s put in a lot of work, and I know she’s expressed how committed she is this year to putting in so much work and love into her senior year because this is her last year here and she’s from here,” Murray said. “She takes the culture and the family feel of Nebraska volleyball very seriously because she grew up watching it.”

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.