The BYU men’s volleyball team will make its return to the court this week led by a good deal of familiar faces.
The Cougars bring back many of their same players from a year ago, including three seniors that garnered prestigious honors in 2024: All-American outside hitters Luke Benson and Miks Ramanis and All-MPSF middle blocker Teon Taylor.
BYU coach Shawn Olmstead is confident that his returning talent will be even better this season, taking a step forward from last year.
“I think they’re bigger, stronger than they have been in the last few years,” the 10th-year head coach said of his players. “We’re going to see a little more physicality. I think you’re going to see that right off the bat when you walk into the gym. You’re going to see it from the guys serving. You’re going to see it from the guys attacking. You’re going to see it from their movement in the back row — a little quicker.
“And again, that comes with experience. It comes with continuing to strength train, etc, etc; just getting a little bit better and seeing things a little earlier. And so you’re going to see … a little bigger, more physical team.”
Though optimistic, Olmstead is eager to see if his players can match his expectations for them.
“We start to see and learn more about our team once the season starts,” he said. “It has the potential to be … a better serving team, and a little bit just top to bottom … tougher and grittier. We’ve got depth we haven’t had the last few years that … we can do our best to maximize and bring off the bench.”
BYU will need that depth as it faces one of the toughest schedules in the sport. The Cougars will compete against some of the best teams in the nation with only four schools on its 28-match schedule not on this season’s inaugural rankings that were released Monday.
The Provo school will begin playing sooner than normal when it travels to No. 11 Ohio State this weekend for a pair of matches, the first set to take place Friday evening.
“I had zero intention to play this weekend,” Olmstead said before explaining that it was the only opening on the Buckeyes’ schedule. “You’ll see a lot of teams doing exhibition and scrimmages this weekend. … But we’re playing. It’s on the record. We get to go to Ohio State and I’m really excited about it.”
“I think they’re bigger, stronger than they have been in the last few years. We’re going to see a little more physicality.”
— BYU coach Shawn Olmstead
All said, BYU will face four of the preseason top five teams twice, playing matches against reigning national champion and No. 1-ranked UCLA near the end of MPSF play. The three other series will all take place consecutively in the nonconference portion of the Cougars’ schedule, beginning with No. 5 Ball State midway through January, followed by Big West foes No. 3 UC Irvine and No. 4 Hawaii. Of the four highly touted opponents, only the Rainbow Warriors will travel to Provo.
Olmstead feels that there isn’t another school in the nation that will face as stiff of competition in January as his team will.
Following its unmatched, difficult, month-long stretch, BYU will then take on another Big West team — UC Santa Barbara, which checks in at No. 16 in the national rankings — before starting MPSF play the next weekend.
“I’ve put together one of the toughest schedules in the country,” Olmstead said. “This was the year for us to do that where we’ve got some depth and so that we can battle those guys and put ourselves in a position to get a really, really solid look at who we are.”
Things won’t get any easier for the Cougars in their league portion of the schedule. The school was picked to finish MPSF play in third place — each one of its conference opponents, minus Concordia, currently ranked inside of the top 13 nationally.
BYU enters the season boasting the No. 6 ranking, tying its highest preseason position since 2021, when it began at No. 1.
The Cougars will have ample opportunities to quickly move up even higher in the rankings if things go their way through the first month of their schedule. They won’t have to wait long for that first opportunity as it sits just on the horizon in Columbus.
