Honestly, there's no other way to put it than saying that the Texas Longhorns got properly shellacked by the Arizona State Sun Devils in their season opener.
As the No. 2 team in the country, the Horns were presumably capable of defeating, well, just about anybody in all of college volleyball.
It took just one set for the No. 13 Sun Devils to look like the better team. They only needed four sets to secure the victory for them. With a 17-25, 17-25, 25-19, and 18-25 score line, Arizona State beat up on Texas, and head coach Jerritt Elliott seemingly didn't have any answers.
The Longhorns recorded fewer kills, more errors, fewer assists, an abysmal hit rate, and fewer digs than the Sun Devils. That kind of performance won't fly the rest of the season, especially once SEC play begins.
The good news is that there's a silver lining. The Horns have a perfect opportunity at hand to find their footing and bounce back from the season-opening upset loss, and it comes with an unranked matchup against the Marquette Golden Eagles.
How to watch No. 2 Texas Longhorns vs. Marquette Golden Eagles
In their second game of the AVCA First Serve showcase, the Horns will face one of their only unranked opponents of the season as they take on the Eagles.
- Date & Time: Monday, Aug. 24, 7 p.m. CT
- Location: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, WI
- TV/Streaming: FS2, fuboTV
- Live stats: StatBroadcast
The Longhorns and the Golden Eagles have met just once before, in 2022, when Texas blew past Marquette in a 3-1 victory to advance to the NCAA Tournament Regional Final, which the Horns were hosting at Gregory Gym.
However, that year was also a season in which the Horns only suffered one (1) loss all year, clinching the National Championship to cap off a 14-game winning streak.
Clearly, the 2026 Texas volleyball team is not the same group as the 2022 Texas volleyball team was. Arizona State just proved that much in four sets.
The biggest question mark after the season opener was why Elliott held senior setter Ella Swindle out of the game.
Swindle has been a cornerstone of the program since she joined the team in 2023. As of right now, Elliott hadn't shared that the veteran setter was struggling with any injuries. So, when she didn't rotate into the game at all on Saturday, and the Longhorns struggled to find their rhythm, it left a lot of fans confused as to what the Texas head coach was doing.
Texas hit at an abysmal 65-percent rate, a far cry from a team that attacked at a 31.5-percent rate just last season (even though that team was also a far cry from one of Elliott's National Championship-winning squads).
Simply put, both Elliott and the players themselves have a lot of questions to answer after their poor showing in the first game of the year, but Marquette could (and should) provide the perfect opportunity for them to find those answers.
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