Snap Back to Reality
#2 Texas remains undefeated but loses the sweep streak
Commentator’s Curse: The supposed propensity of a player to blunder after having their talents pointed out by the commentator.
Many of us are all-too-familiar with the commentator’s curse striking at the most inopportune moments, likely in forms similar to the play-by-play announcer on ESPN talking up how your field goal kicker hasn’t missed this season inside of 40 yards right before a 37 yard kick doinks off the top of the left upright. It seems this is the universe’s way of letting us know that we have kinda-sorta “made it”. As dedicated readers of Point Texas are acutely aware, Brittany opened last week’s article hyping up Texas’ sweep streak which had run all the way to seven consecutive, a mark they hadn’t hit in more than half a decade.
Not only did the match with #17 Tennessee put an end to that streak, but Texas also managed to drop a set against the lowly Crimson Tide of Alabama. Thankfully, Texas still came out on top of both matches, but the inability to at least sweep (or more appropriately: roll) the Tide was a little bit jarring for a fanbase that’s probably gotten a little complacent with the ease with which the Horns were dominating to open conference play.
Anyway, in a random personal anecdote, I feel like my serving in rec league volleyball has gotten pretty good. I played in a sand tournament this Saturday ahead of (and frustratingly running over into the first half of) the Red River Shootout and received some of the best feedback on my serve I’ve ever gotten. I launched a rocket off a guy’s wrists for an easy ace, then followed it up by hitting one even harder right off his chest. “I’ll buy you a beer if you never do that again” were the words he used to congratulate me on the ball not being returnable. He was unfortunately not a man of his word because he did not buy me a beer after I pulled the string on the next serve to one of his teammates. Loser.
Red Lights
Service Errors
Spooky season did not prepare us for how horrific the issues from the service line were from Texas last week. While most teams target a 1:1 ratio of service aces to service errors, Texas’ “good” performance this week saw them put up seven aces against twelve errors against Tennessee. The issues from the line were even more extreme against Alabama, delivering a paltry five aces versus seventeen errors (despite playing one fewer set than they did against the Vols!). Texas in general started the match in Tuscaloosa a bit sleepy, hitting a whopping .000 in the first set. Having the struggles from the service line made everything else that much more painful.
The service woes ultimately sank the first set for Texas against the Crimson Tide and put many other sets at risk if they persist. On the year, Texas has 61 aces against 97 errors, good for 333rd in the nation. The good (?) news is that the Longhorns’ primary competition to win the Southeastern Conference, Kentucky and A&M, have not been much better: the Wildcats also have 61 aces against 124 errors, while the Aggies have 74 aces compared to 165 errors. Even still, Texas needs to improve dramatically at their ability to deliver service pressure if they want to continue to be threats to win the national championship. All it takes is running into one buzzsaw from the service line to derail the entire operation, much in the same way that a random scrawny farm boy playing for a school in the Missouri Valley conference can drill 14 threes and take down a national title hopeful during March Madness. Let’s not fall victim to that story.
Yellow Lights
Abby Vander Wal
One week you’re a green light, and one week you’re a yellow light. C’est la vie when you are a freshman who is playing a major role in this volleyball program, it would seem. Last week saw an unsteady performance from AVW. Clearly, this is something the coaching staff and her teammates believe is simply a product of youth because it has not led to a decrease in her opportunities. Abby hit an extremely strong .292 on 24 swings in the match with Tennessee and followed it up with a less-impressive .158 against Alabama, though she did deliver the second-most kills of her young career with 13 against the Tide.
Things continue to move in the “feast or famine” area of performance for AVW after I hyped up things appearing to stabilize for her in my last article. One match will see her hit well below .200 (or worse, hitting -.273 against Mississippi State on a small sample size of swings) before she has an outstanding performance the next. She’s undoubtedly continuing to find her rhythm and establish herself as a consistent and reliable presence in that MB2 role.
Slow Starts
I waxed poetic (or perhaps more accurately whined?) about “winning sleepy” in my last article, and I feel like it is worth re-litigating that now in the wake of the Alabama match. Yes, this was a match Texas generally controlled after the first set, but it was a miserable first set to watch the team lose with repeated mental errors against what appears to be one of the worst teams on the schedule this year. I won’t restate what was said regarding the issues with the serving in the match, but I will draw some concern to the offense in the first set.
Not only did the Longhorns swing .000 for the set (indicating the successful kills were exactly matched by the number of attacking errors), but they also managed to only have seven total kills on 31 attempts, both by far the lowest total in a set in the match. This indicates a significant struggle with getting into system and being able to deliver attackable balls for the pin hitters to convert into points. Putting themselves into a hole early is something they can recover from against teams like Alabama’s, but better teams in the conference like the Kentuckys, A&Ms, and Floridas of the world will punish that kind of sloppiness.
Every team has different buttons that need to get pressed to wake them up and get them going in a match. It seems they don’t need a ton of help “getting up” for big opponents, but there are a lot of weak teams in the SEC this year that don’t get nearly the hype or media attention that nearly the entirety of Texas’ non-conference schedule has received. The team needs to re-focus and find that killer instinct again so they can put away the teams they are supposed to right from the starting gun rather than play with their food unnecessarily. I don’t want to have to write an article about taking an L against an Ole Miss or South Carolina just because we started slow and couldn’t battle our way out in time.
Green Lights
Torrey Stafford
This Texas offense has been significantly more varied in its approach this year. In years past, Texas has relied on production predominantly from a standout middle blocker in addition to attacks from the left pin. They are much more diverse in their attack this year, doing things like making Cari Spears a weapon from the back row or slotting her into the middle to give defenses a lot more things to worry about in terms of where the ball will be coming from.
As Brittany alluded to in her last article, Texas is at risk of having multiple players have “down” games as a result of the inherent inconsistency that comes with the number of freshmen on the floor at any given time. During stretches of the match against Tennessee, we saw that messiness sink some points for Texas.
Combine both of these truths about the 2025 Texas volleyball team, and it becomes clear that Texas needs to be certain that it has a reliable and experienced arm to turn to when the chips are down and a point is desperately needed by any means necessary. As it just so happens, Torrey Stafford is the only means Texas needs. The junior outside hitter transfer from Pitt has been nothing short of stunning for Texas and outright dominant when the Longhorns ask her to be. If there is a critical swing point available, you can be sure that Torrey Stafford will not only be asked to shoulder the burden but also convert successfully. During the five set thriller with the fake UT, Stafford took over the match for significant stretches, not the least of which was delivering four consecutive kills to take Set 1 25-22 after trailing 22-21 late.
Torrey recorded 30 kills (more than double any other player on either team) and hit .297 on an astounding 64 swings (also leading the match) against the Volunteers. Even when everyone knows exactly who is going to get the ball in the clutch moments, she’s able to convert it into points for Texas. Dread it. Run from it. Torrey Stafford arrives all the same. And for that reason, she earned her second SEC Overall & Offensive Player of the Week awards this year. Ella Swindle also got her second SEC Setter of the Week recognition to boot!
The Texas Block
Welcome back. We’ve been missing you.
For much of this season, the typically-stellar Texas block has been absent from matches. Some conversation has come out of booster events that there has been a philosophical shift in the role of the block this year not to create immediate points by shutting down the opposing offenses. Much of the Texas block’s role this year has been to merely get the ball slowed down and allow Emma Halter and Ramsey Gary to just vacuum up easy digs, get Ella Swindle into system, and have the pin hitters swing away.
While it’s hard to argue with the results too much (reminder: still undefeated), few things in this sport resonate quite like roofing your opponent repeatedly during a match. I get hyped up. You get hyped up. The team gets hyped up. Gregory Gym gets hyped up. And while the approach to this point has been effective enough, there will come a time when we’ll desperately need the block to simply lock down an opponent. We finally saw one such time this week against Tennessee.
With the Horns pushed to their third fifth set of the season, the block came up big. Ayden Ames delivered huge stuffs on back-to-back points to stretch the Texas lead early in the set to 5-0, and Torrey Stafford contributed a block of her own to give Texas a six point lead later in the shortened set. While they hit a combined .262 for the match, the Volunteers were forced to hit negative in Set 5, posting a stunning -.059 in the frame.
It was a nice reappearance for MBU to put the match away in Texas’ favor and a good reminder that the block numbers being down don’t appear to be a question of ability but rather philosophy. The staff is adamant that this change is showing up in other less-appreciated areas of the scoresheet. And realistically, how many nits can we truly pick as long as a goose egg remains in the loss column for Texas?
Defense Intercepts John Mateer 3x
Okay, so this one is admittedly nothing to do with the volleyball team, but anytime Texas beats Oklahoma in any sport, it’s an event worth celebrating. The Longhorns defense bounced back from a shaky performance a week earlier in Gainesville against the Florida Gators by utterly dominating the Sooners and supposed-Heisman favorite John Mateer. For the third time in four years, Texas kept Oklahoma out of the endzone in the Cotton Bowl, a feat all of us have surely been certain to remind the nearest Sooners about since the final whistle on Saturday.
And now the ladies of the volleyball team will have their turn to dominate the Land Thieves this weekend.
No matter what time of day, day of the week, week of the month, or month of the year it is, always and forever: OU f#&%ing sucks.
Next Up
It’s a homestand at The Greg this weekend! Get to campus and get loud especially since football won’t be back in Austin until next month!
Arkansas Razorbacks (5-12, 1-5, L5) - 6:30 PM CT on Friday, 10/17 at Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, TX (SECN+)
Oklahoma Sooners (12-4, 4-2, L1) - 7:30 PM CT on Sunday, 10/19 at Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, TX (ESPN)