It’s Sept. 18, 2024, and the Smith Fieldhouse is on fire.
No. 19 BYU has Utah State on the ropes late in the fourth set and the raucous crowd that has redefined what a volleyball team’s home-court advantage can look and feel like is completely engaged.
Standing at the head of the Aggies bench is coach Rob Neilson. He knows this scene all too well. In fact, as a former BYU national champion, he and all his teammates helped create it.
“It’s a place like no other. It’s so loud in there,” Neilson told the “Y’s Guys” livestream show this week. “It’s this old building and the sound reverberates off those old air conditioning pipes up there.”
Neilson prepped his Aggies for the atmosphere as best he could during the week, telling them, “There is going to be some massive pressure on the line because when it gets tight, you start looking at all these fans.”
This is one of those tight moments and a far cry from the condition the Aggies program was in prior to Neilson’s arrival in 2020. Utah State went 2-28 the year before and had a national ranking somewhere near 299.
Four seasons later, here they are, a budding contender in the Mountain West Conference and going toe-to-toe against a Big 12 program that has a regularly scheduled appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Anticipating a victory, the Cougars and the crowd watch unexpectedly as Utah State fends off four BYU match points to win the set 27-25. A peak moment for Neilson and his team for sure, but a reality check is moments away.
A strong response, both on the court and up in the stands, proves too much for the upset-seeking Aggies. BYU’s Brielle Miller fires an ace to claim the fifth set 15-11 and the match for the Cougars, 3-2.
Upset bid over.
The long ride back to Logan was a mixed bag of joy and disappointment. Neilson was bummed about the loss, but excited by what he and his staff were building. What they didn’t know that night was that 16 months later, he and his staff would return to Provo and stay.
BYU hired Neilson on Dec. 23, 2025, to succeed Heather Olmstead as head coach. His first match at the Smith Fieldhouse since the spirited five-set defeat in 2024 will be Aug. 22, when the Cougars host Utah Tech in exhibition play.
“It’s different coming into a program that has been to 11-straight NCAA tournaments and made big runs and had players who have played at the highest level,” Neilson said. “We are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We just want to make little changes, maybe change our focus in a few different areas, turn some dials here and there.”
What Neilson hopes will go unchanged is the tenacity of the Fieldhouse.
“There are those moments when you are jumping 6 inches higher. You are just hammering balls. The crowd is on your side,” he said. “There is this wave of momentum that is so tough to play against for our opponents and we just love.”
Neilson scheduled two matches in Provo when he was at Utah State and he went 0-2, but part of the reason he brought his players to town was for them to see and feel what he saw and felt as a member of the men’s 2024 national championship team.
“When you have coaches that avoid the Smith Fieldhouse, man, you’re just missing the boat on how great this place is,” Neilson said. “Then you have those coaches that every year want to bring their team because they are going to have this big-time environment that they get to test their team in front of. I just think there is no better place to play volleyball. It’s so loud. The ROC does an incredible job.”
Utah State will play at BYU on Sept. 19. When the two teams reunite, Neilson and his staff will be on the other side of the floor. This time, instead of trying to subdue the Fieldhouse, they will be looking for ways to set it on fire.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.