Taylor Landfair transfers to Nebraska after leaving Gophers volleyball team

In what is becoming an unwelcome holiday tradition, one of the Gophers top players became a transfer portal present for a Big Ten rival. Taylor Landfair announced Monday that she is transferring to Nebraska. She joins a team that lost one regular season match last season and was the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament before being surprisingly swept by Texas in the national championship.

Landfair spent four years at Minnesota and was named first team All Big Ten three times and conference player of the year in 2022. She will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with the Cornhuskers after redshirting due to injury as a sophomore and gaining an extra year because of COVID 19. She entered the transfer portal after playing three seasons for Hugh McCutcheon and one season for Keegan Cook at Minnesota.

Now Landfair will play for John Cook, who has built a dynasty with four national titles over 24 seasons at Nebraska. His team is the showcase of college volleyball, an arena packing, TV ratings behemoth that set the record for attendance at a women's sporting event this year when 92,0003 fans watched it play Nebraska Omaha at Memorial Stadium.

Reports said Landfair's decision came down to Nebraska and Wisconsin. Last year it was the Badgers that grabbed a crucial Minnesota transfer on Christmas Eve when Carter Booth joined Kelly Sheffield's team. Cook has long set himself as the antithesis to Sheffield, who has built a juggernaut through the transfer portal, by pointing out his more traditional approach to program building at Nebraska.

That distinction is no longer applicable. The Cornhuskers may have had a bevy of freshman stars this season, but they wouldn't have been anywhere without junior Merritt Beason, who was named first team All America after transferring from Florida. Now they add Landfair and firmly join the transfer arms race.

And the Gophers? They are once again left on the other side of that equation with roster spots to fill and old acquaintances to try and forget as a new year gets underway..