What Texas' other coaches learned, drew inspiration from the volleyball team's NCAA title

As Rori Harmon became the fifth University of Texas women's basketball player to record 500 career assists, the Longhorns rolled to a 104-51 win at UT-Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday night. The victory improved the fifth-ranked Longhorns to 12-0, though they still have much work to do if they want to win a national championship.

Championships are a standard with UT athletics, and the Longhorns' volleyball team reminded everyone about that last weekend when Texas claimed its fifth national title with a sweep of Nebraska.

The UT head coaches of its three major sports — football's Steve Sarkisian, men's basketball's Rodney Terry and women's basketball's Vic Schaefer — shared their thoughts on what they might have specifically learned from watching volleyball coach Jerritt Elliott's Longhorns win back-to-back national championships.

Steve Sarkisian: Football is using volleyball as inspiration

Sarkisian said he used the volleyball team's season-opening loss to Long Beach State back in late August as a teaching tool for his football program at the beginning of its season. He also said UT outside hitter Madisen Skinner's comments after last Sunday's championship match also caught the attention of his football players, who are preparing for the College Football Playoff.

"She said, 'We were the best team in the country at the end of the year. We were peaking at the right time. We're playing our best volleyball right now,'" Sarkisian recalled. "I went into the team meeting the next day, and I said I almost felt like Madisen Skinner was talking about us because we played our best two games of the year the last two weeks of the season. Now we need to continue to do it as we go into this Sugar Bowl, to play our best brand of football of what it's going to take, because that's what it takes to be a champion.

"So, very inspiring," Sarkisian added. "So fired up for Jerritt and his staff, those girls. They had a heck of a season to be back-to-back national champs, and hopefully we can do our part to try to keep the momentum going here at Texas."

Rodney Terry: Volleyball's success can have a domino effect

During his media availability on Tuesday, Terry also praised the volleyball team. He said he "got a chance to show our guys the video of them playing, and the way they played up there was just so inspiring to us, our team and hopefully a lot of teams on our campus."

Vic Schaefer: Volleyball's huddles tell you all you need to know

Schaefer pointed to the volleyball team's resiliency and match toughness, and how the Longhorns' battle back from match point against Tennessee in the Sweet 16 match set up UT's three consecutive wins over No. 1 seeds Stanford, Wisconsin and Nebraska to win the title.

"Those kids are tough and just have an unbelievable competitive spirit. It's great to see," Schaefer said. "But they got better, y'all. You know, one of the things we take pride in is when we hit March, we still keep working to get better. That team kept getting better. They didn't just hit postseason and go, ‘Well, what we got is what we got.’ A lot of coaches are like that. They’ll work 45 minutes and call it a day. Well, you ain't getting better in a 45-minute practice. Those kids got better. That's coaching. When you can get better in the last three weeks of your season, to me, that's coaching and that's kids bought in. In that case with volleyball, that's what you got.

"And the last thing I'll tell you is they’ve got chemistry, like they're together," Schaefer added. "You watch their huddles, y'all, they are tight. When they come together, they are interlocked and they are tight. ... They're in there close, they're tight. You watch my huddles, that's something big that I always film. I'm coaching my kids on what’s your huddle look like? If we're all just standing next to each other versus we're in there close and we're in there eye-to-eye and we can smell each other's breath, that's a huddle. And their huddles, you can tell their chemistry is off the chart, and that's why they played that way."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas volleyball's NCAA title gave inspiration for other UT teams