NU volleyball coach Cook says he was willing to go over scholarship limit to keep Caffey | Volleyball

CHICAGO — Kayla Caffey at one point wanted to play volleyball for Nebraska this season.

Coach John Cook said at Big Ten media days Monday that the Huskers wanted Caffey, too, but the two sides never got on the same page throughout several months.

Caffey announced late last week she is entering the NCAA transfer portal to play her final year of college volleyball elsewhere. 

Last winter, the NCAA granted Caffey a waiver to play this season, but Nebraska never said for certain Caffey would return. She practiced with the team in the spring and spent time with the team this summer.

In a social media post last week, Caffey said if she stayed at Nebraska, she wouldn’t be able to have one of the scholarships for the fall semester, and that she learned of it just a few weeks ago.

Cook disputes that. The coach says Caffey had a spot on the team — and a scholarship — if she wanted. But Caffey never announced her return.

“We were fully committed to her financial situation,” Cook said. “She had everything covered.”

Nebraska was also willing to lose one scholarship for next season by keeping Caffey, which would have put the team over the 12-player scholarship limit.

Cook spent several minutes Monday explaining the “very unique situation” from his side.

Last season, Cook asked Caffey if she wanted to come back, and she said she would.

“Our compliance people went through months of work to get her that seventh year, (of eligibility)” Cook said. “It was not a done deal. It was very complicated. They worked hard to get that passed.

“They also hit us with a year penalty if she was going to play at Nebraska that we could take this year or next year. So we continued to have discussions and I double-checked with Kayla and said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this because this is going to cost us a lot?’ And we were fully committed to two scholarships for her over two years for her to play her super-senior year.”

Cook asked Caffey why she wanted to come back, and she responded that she wanted to help Nebraska win a national championship.

“Things continued to unfold,” Cook said. “We made a couple appeals and things changed, but by May it was all worked out and the ball was in her court. As far as I knew she was coming back. I was waiting for her to do her announcement, which all of these transfers do. It’s like going through recruiting again. We were waiting for that and it never happened. And then last week she said she was done. That’s about all I know.”

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