Texas Challenging Itself in Non-Conference as Usual (Full Schedule)

Volleyball powerhouse and back-to-back NCAA Runner-Up University of Texas strung together another tough slate of non-conference games before it goes through another challenging Big 12 season.

Texas opens the season on August 25th taking on Florida – a match that will be hosted by the Gators as part of the VERT Challenge. Florida was ranked 11th by the committee in the NCAA Tournament in 2016 and finished the season slotted 15th in the final AVCA Coaches Poll. The two last met in 2015, when they dueled twice. The first was a four-set victory for Florida in Austin, while the most recent meeting of the two schools was a Texas five-set win to advance to the 2015 NCAA Semifinals.

Beyond Florida, the Longhorns also drew Oregon – who finished last year ranked 21 – in the VERT Challenge. Although Nebraska will be there too, the schools won’t collide for a Final Four rematch.

The following week Texas will travel to the opposite coast for a tournament in San Diego. The real headliner is host University of San Diego, who was a giant-killer in the non-conference a season ago. In 2016, the Toreros took out eventual-National Champion Stanford, UCLA and a few others as they nabbed four wins against top-18 teams in the AVCA Poll at the time of play.

The Longhorns will then head back to Austin to host a tournament that features Minnesota. The match on September 8th will be a battle of two teams who made it to the NCAA Semifinals in consecutive seasons. In 2015, Texas took down Minnesota for a spot in the National Championship game.

A little less than a week following that, Texas heads to College Station on September 13th to face rival Texas A&M.

In total, Texas will see six tournament teams in the non-conference part of the season. Three of those six won at least one game in the NCAA Tournament. That will prelude the Longhorns Big 12 path in which they will see the entirety of the conference for a round-robin.

The circled dates for Texas will be against Kansas, who were able to unseat the Longhorns as Big 12 champions in 2016. The match in Lawrence takes place on October 11th, while Texas will be at home against the Jayhawks on November 15th.

If you include those Big 12 opponents, Texas will match-up with 11 different teams who made the NCAA Tournament, including 16 matches against those teams since Texas plays each of their Big 12 foes twice.

The schedule features some top tier opponents, but with all the returning talent that Texas features with Ebony Nwanebu, Micaya White, Cat McCoy, Yasmeen Bedart-Ghani and more in addition to a stellar recruiting class, the Longhorns are in a prime position to handle the many tough opponents they will face in 2017.

Home Games are in bold