A Look into Texas Volleyball’s 2024 Schedule

Texas Volleyball has announced its path to a third consecutive national championship and possible inaugural SEC championship.

Texas outside hitter Madisen Skinner celebrates after a point with her team during the Longhorns' match against the Cougars, Sept. 28, 2023 in Gregory Gymnasium. Texas dropped the first set to the Cougars, but won the next three for a victory at home in Austin. / Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA

Texas volleyball’s road to a three-peat will start on Sept. 1 in Milwaukee against 2022 national champions Wisconsin.

Before starting SEC conference play on Sept. 27, the Longhorns will host Indiana, Miami, Houston and Hawaii, and play Minnesota, Baylor and Stanford on the road.

The SEC couldn’t start any different for Texas, as the team will debut its first season in the conference against arch-rivals Texas A&M. After a trip to Baton Rouge a couple of days later, the Longhorns will return to Austin to host its first SEC game against South Carolina.

The Gamecocks will be the only guests in Austin for the first five games, but Longhorn volleyball fans will have a great time from Oct. 18 to Nov. 3. In that period, Texas will host Arkansas, Georgia, Texas A&M, Missouri, and fellow conference transfers Oklahoma.

Texas defeated Texas A&M in the first round of the national tournament in 2023, but its biggest challenge of the postseason came in the round of 16 against Tennessee. The Longhorns’ run came close to an end in this thrilling match against the Vols that lasted a record three hours. Texas will host Tennessee in the second to last game of the regular season on Nov. 27, before the season finale against Ole Miss on the 30, also at Gregory Gymnasium.

Coming into the season, head coach Jerritt Elliott will work with the absences of key players from the 2023 national championship including Asjia O’Neal, Molly Phillips, Bella Bergmark and Reilly Heinrich, as well as setter Marina Crownover. But all is not lost, as a rich group of newcomers has joined the team in the offseason. 2021 national champion with Kentucky and Madisen Skinner’s former teammate Reagan Rutherford is one of the big names coming into the program, along will 2023 Gatorade High School Player of the Year Ayden Ames.

If Texas reaches a third consecutive national championship at the end of 2024, it will be only the second program in the history of the tournament to achieve this after Penn State from 2007 to 2010.