As I look ahead to 2026, Year Two under Coach Dani Busboom Kelly, the Nebraska Cornhuskers are poised for another historic run. They started the year a perfect 33-0 and 20-0 in the Big Ten. Three All-Americans—Riley, Harper, and Andy Jackson—are all returning to Lincoln. The season will feature a marquee matchup against Missouri on September 6th at the iconic Wrigley Field, a double-header in the “Friendly Confines,” not far from our studios right here in Chicago. We are thrilled to have Coach Busboom Kelly with us as we continue our coverage of Big Ten Volleyball Media Day.

Interviewer: You know, Coach, you are in such an interesting position. I think any other coach looks back on last year and says “wow,” and everybody from the outside asks: How did Nebraska not win it all? It might be an unfair question, but a lot of people ask it. So, how do you, your staff, and the players assess what did take place in 2025?

Coach Busboom Kelly: You know, you look back at the season as a whole, especially after that last game, and you can reflect on it. We did have an incredible season, and it is sports. Things happen, adversity hits; you don’t know what will happen on competition day. So, I don’t—we don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. We had an unbelievable year. I thought our composure throughout the whole year was fantastic. You could never tell we were playing with pressure, you couldn’t tell we were complacent. We were practicing as great in August as we were in December. The last game didn’t go our way. There is not a lot, in my opinion, that would change the process. Now, maybe the December moment we can change some things, and there are other things we could do, but it just wasn’t in our cards that night.

Interviewer: I think if anybody had predicted that any team could go 20-0 in this league in conference play, they would have been told they were crazy. Did you see that as a realistic possibility coming into this league?

Coach Busboom Kelly: Not really. But you don’t start a season saying, “Let’s go undefeated.” Those really aren’t on your goals. That is why it was easy to stay focused moving forward and always battling as much as we could, keeping our practices super competitive. It wasn’t on our goal sheet at the beginning of the year, but it was incredible. There were moments you think, “Wow, we are really good,” or you keep thinking “This will be the game, this is the one that will catch us,” and then we play amazing. Like, I guess we are pretty good this year.

Interviewer: How different does it feel for you, sitting here this year, in comparison to when we chatted almost exactly a year ago?

Coach Busboom Kelly: It is a lot different. You know, just the familiarity with players, I think, is the biggest one. The conversations can be a little more authentic and real. They are not like, “Let’s get to know each other, what is your coaching style?” I am not trying to figure out how they like to be coached. I think we can all be ourselves a little bit more, which will allow for more accountability. Relationships are so important, and they don’t happen overnight. We have had a year and a half now to work on those pieces. So that is a big change. Then, personally, you know, when you have a baby and move, there is a lot going on. I am excited to be in a little bit more of a routine, just in my life.

Interviewer: Probably less crazy, but not entirely sane.

Coach Busboom Kelly: No sane.

Interviewer: At the Dani Busboom Kelly house with the ages and with the job you have going on. As you start to look into the start of 2026, what do you do in terms of setting goals—without sharing any of the state secrets you like to keep inside your locker room? How do you set the things that are measurable, timely, and realistic for you and your team?

Coach Busboom Kelly: As we have started this preseason, we haven’t dove into that quite yet. A lot of it is, look, we are getting started earlier than normal. We have a lot of noise around the program this year—probably even more than last year and in the past with these games and events. We got to get through that, and then realize what our goals really are. I do think we will have lineup differences from last year and some new faces. Once we get that a little more established, and we have a little bit better roadmap, I think that is when we will start figuring out what the goals are for the season. I do think being in a program where the expectations are so high, and we are very talented, it might be better to go back and have some smaller goals we can accomplish along the way. One of the challenges here is: How do you celebrate the little things? Because they are not so great if you don’t accomplish the big things. We got to remember that this is a long season, and there is a lot to celebrate along the way.

Interviewer: It is hard, though, to look past some big things. You mentioned the things you have; I mentioned Wrigley, and then one a million times bigger, if you will. How do you balance wanting players to be at their best for that, while also understanding that is the sprint to the beginning of a marathon that won’t end, hopefully, until mid-December?

Coach Busboom Kelly: Then you have the Big Ten Tournament, and then we have the renewed rivalry with Texas. A lot of really fun events that, hopefully, will be a way for our team to enjoy the season. They are all very different, which I think is exciting as a coach. We didn’t just plan the events by the seat of our pants; there is a method around it. This is an exhibition, you know, and this is a Big Ten Challenge. Here is one against Texas, and then we go into conference play. So, there should be little things to look forward to throughout the season that keep everybody in the forward-progressing mindset.

Interviewer: But I am assuming that also means the philosophy of the very few remaining spots in the non-conference after the events and the Big Ten-SEC Challenge means you have to be picky about who you schedule.

Coach Busboom Kelly: One of the biggest things is we have a sort of new arena to show off. Devaney has been remodeled, and we wanted to play in there as much as we could. You have to balance tough opponents versus wanting to get matches in and giving our fans the opportunity to watch us play, all in a short amount of time.

Interviewer: You mention that you have some new faces, but you return some names that are so well-known here that we will talk to: Andy and Harper. When you have veteran players that have played in the biggest moments, what does it allow a coach and coaching staff to do throughout the course of the year and in the moments that we don’t see—that people who only see playing matches don’t get to witness?

Coach Busboom Kelly: You get to hit the ground running in practice. We have talked a lot about how we are structuring the preseason; we did two-a-days. What are our goals as a coaching staff? It is more about fine-tuning and making sure the team is on the same page, making sure leadership is progressing in the right way—not so much about the actual skills. In a lot of programs you are working on, “What is this drill called? What is our terminology? What are expectations?” We don’t have to do that. We have other things we can start to work on. Sometimes that is tough, because then you start nitpicking everything when you have a veteran squad.

Interviewer: How much conversation is there with the players—and not just the coaching staff—leading into that, and what maybe they think works best for them as well?

Coach Busboom Kelly: Certainly, one of the top things on my pillar of coaching styles would be collaboration. Our staff, everybody has an input; we plan practices together, we are constantly talking to particular leaders about how they are feeling, what is working, what can we do different? Because we are so collaborative, there is a lot of honest communication. I believe our leaders tell us what they really think, and then we adjust accordingly. And then we start to have these younger players feel like their voice is heard and they have input. Their mindset might be different than seniors. You really want to take into consideration everybody on the team and make their voices important.

Interviewer: As you get ready for the season and any match, what does it mean to a program to have a player like Bergen—three-time Setter of the Year and reigning Big Ten Player of the Year—coming back, and knowing what she will provide for you on a match-by-match basis?

Coach Busboom Kelly: Bergen is a super consistent player—not just as a setter, but as a blocker, defender, attacker, and server. So across the board, she is so consistent. I think it just allows the rest of the team to know what we will get from the Big Ten Player of the Year; that we can count on her to be very good at all of those things. She doesn’t have to be that much better than she is. She can work on leading and being a stronger voice and not worry about her play. But Bergen, it is crazy she has all these accolades. You never feel that because she is so humble. You said “three-time Setter of the Year,” and I’m like, she was? I forget that because she is so humble and not worried about the accolades. She is worried about the team and the goals of the team.

Interviewer: I spoke with her last year, and I was like, “You are setting and Player of the Year.”

Coach Busboom Kelly: She was like, “What?”

Interviewer: As for steps taken every year, last year we saw her become the dangerous player every time the ball was in the air. Where do you look for her to take the next step in 2026?

Coach Busboom Kelly: A little bit of the same as Bergen: just some leadership. She has probably been the one I have seen grow the most this year in leadership, voice, and setting the tone for the team. That has been incredible to see. And then she is obviously an amazing attacker. Can she have that effect on the game blocking? She did a lot of work in the USA gym, and I know that has been a huge focus of hers. Just seeing her make little changes that go a long way is pretty neat as a coach, because when you get to a certain caliber, improvement is small. But Andy improves every single day—it might be a little one day, a lot one day—but you can see that, and I know she celebrates that too.

Interviewer: I think it says a lot about a program and what is coming back when you also tie in the freshman recruiting, when you don’t have to take a transfer—almost unheard of in today’s day and age of college sports. So, how different was that for you, and did you know that was going to be the case all along?

Coach Busboom Kelly: I think you are not a good coach or integrated program if you are not dabbling in the transfer portal, at least seeing what is out there. But here, you have to be really selective. We want to make sure that anybody we bring into the program is for the right reasons. I just felt after last season that we could trust who the players are in our program and the progress they made. The underclassmen from August to December was huge. Then you have the spring season with them, and I am excited to see what they can do because they earned the right to be here just as much as anybody else and earned the right to show what they can do on the biggest stage.

Interviewer: Finally, for you, what is the best part of getting back in the gym when you know it is for real?

Coach Busboom Kelly: The best part—definitely the training. Just getting to coach and teach and interact with the players. For our sport, we don’t have summer access, so it feels like you are just wondering what everybody is doing all the time. Now we get to actually be around each other and get to communicate and hang out and start forming our goals.