The Viral Volley Podcast

Episode 300, College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20, Week 11 Recap 03-16-2026

As always, we start off "shouting out" some of our Men's Volleyball digital content providers, and this week it's Lee Feinswog of 900 Square Feet and @flicksbyry_!

In the 300^th episode (on Viral Volley Media) we’ve got an NCAA Men’s Championship Volleyball Recap in Week 11 that saw No. 1 UCLA remain undefeated—which beckons the question, “Can the Bruins be beaten?” Also, Penn St. makes a West Coast swing vs. Long Beach St., Pepperdine and USC as Coach Pav continues his retirement tour. Stanford snatches a couple wins against No 7 BYU that could prove to me huge come MPSF Tournament time while celebrating Volleyball Day in the Bay. The then-No. 11 UCSB Gauchos split their Big West series vs. No. 4 UCI behind George Breuning and the mustache-clad Cole Schobel. The Coaches’ Panel chat about a few other matches, then we go into the new HOT segment— “Jay’s Quick Hits,” and this one is a doozy!

Thanks for listening/watching and following!

Episode 299, College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20, Week 10 Recap 03-09-2026

In Episode 299 CVW Men’s Top 20 is graced with the guest appearance of Princeton Head Coach, Sam Shweisky. Sam joins the crew to talk about some of the top 20 matches during the 10^th week of the Men’s Collegiate season. Each week, the MIVA seems to have more mayhem as teams jostle for positioning for post-season play. The Waves split with the Bows for an entertaining series, Belmont Abbey and Mt. Olive are vying for the top spot in the Conference Carolinas, while the “Battle for LA” proved that the lone defeated team in the nation can turn it on in crunch time.

From there the crew selects their “Ballers of the Week,” and matches they’ll be watching in Week 11. We finish the episode with a new favorite segment, “Jay’s Quick Hits,” where the coaches answer some interesting topics in Men’s Volleyball!

Thanks for watching and/or listening! #NCAAMVB

Episode 298, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20, Week 9 Recap, 03-02-26

This week, we go through our normal routine of recognizing digital content creators in the Men’s game. This week it was reported that the Official Fan Account for NCAA Men’s Volleyball, @ncaamvb surpassed 22.6 MILLION views! Great news for #ncaavb, but even better news for Men’s Volleyball! In our news segment we remember Steven Lee Sander, father to Taylor and Brenden, two wonderful personalities in Men’s Volleyball. Other news for the week, had former Stanford All-American Matt Fuerbringer being named as Head Coach of the USAV Beach Team as well. From there we go into the “Elephant in the Room,” that highlights the Coaching Panelists’ matches in Week 9, “Eye Catching Matches” of the week and finally, the panel’s “Ballers/Players of the Week.”

New this week, is “Jay’s Quick Hits” segment where we bounce a handful of NCAA Men’s Volleyball questions/topics on the spot for a hot take!

 

Thanks for listening and following! #ncaamvb #ncaamvolleyball #ncaavolleyball

Episode 297, College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20, ASU, Week 1 Recap 02-24-26

This week’s episode brings on Arizona St.’s Arden Besecker and Kendall Whitmarsh fresh off the most recent AVCA poll and the first named conference pairs of the week across the nation! Arden and Kendall discuss last year’s journey for the Sun Devils as they had another great season under Head Coach Kristen Glattfelder being on the verge of heading to Gulf Shores! 

Both the Sun Devils share a little about their 2026 team and recap their 1st week of play which grabbed the attention of the voters in the most recent poll, as ASU thrusts up 2 places from #11 to #9. Along with the climb, Arden and partner, Zoey Taylor, and Kendall and her partner, Olivia McElroy went 4-0 on the weekend. The latter were named Big 12 Pair of the Week!

We discuss what matches and results grabbed their attention in Week 1– which all happened on Queen’s Beach in Waikiki, HI at the Duke Kahanamoku Classic!

Thanks for listening/watching!

Episode 296, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 8 Recap 2-23-26

In our Week 8 recap of the 2026 season the Coaches’ Panel (minus Dan out with the flu)

discusses the action that happened in D1-2 Men’s Volleyball at our half way point!

 

But first, we shout out our Instagram content creators @1stseedvolleyball’s John McNallly and

Holly Wong of @hykchora for putting out excellent and engaging content in Men’s

Volleyball!

 

From there we discuss the start of a new D2 program at Mercy University, career milestones

for Kevin Burch of Ohio St. and Shawn Olmstead of BYU. As always wee flow into

our “Elephant in the Room” segment to our matches of the week and our Ballers

of the Week.

 

Our conversation flows into “Whatcha Watchin’” in Week 9 and we end with dropping a “Volleyball

Hot Take”—for which I recommend you take a good listen!

 

As always, thank you for watching/listening!

Episode 295, College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20: AVCA Preseason Polls and Watchlist, 02-17-2026

As we kick off the 2026 NCAA Beach season, Sydney Miller of Hawaii jumps on to chat with Rob about the first-ever AVCA Player of the Year Watchlist while breaking down the top-10-ish teams in the AVCA Preseason Poll. Of course we drop a lot of names because that list could have been bigger, but there is such an abundance of talent on teams' rosters-- to a point where some did not get mentioned!

CVW BT20 will change format for this season (listen to the episode to find out why), but no matter what we'll have at least Sydney on the show for a chat of the Top 20 Tidbits/Results!

Thanks for listening/watching! #NCAABEACH

Episode 294, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20, 2/16/26

Our Week 7 recap mean’s we’re coming upon the half-way point of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Collegiate Volleyball season! Tteams are turning heads as conference play in the EIVA and MIVA have made us expect the unexpected! Meanwhile, Non-conference clashes have teams butting heads to keep records unblemished, establish nonconference superiority and get quality wins under teams’ belts! The CVW crew runs down the Week 7 recap all the way down to the No. 1 team in the nation, but not before our special guests from the MPSF join us!

From there, the guys pick their Ballers of the Week and drop the matches they’ll be keeping dabs on in “Whatcha Watchin’!” 

Thanks for watching/listening! Spread the word, and click on subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and/or on YouTube!

Episode 293, College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20, 2-9-26

Illness and technical difficulties made this episode a little choppy but it didn’t matter as the Coaches’ Panel dropped their recaps, insights and opinions on an action-packed Week 6!

Discussion includes “Social Media Shout Outs” to Vinnie Lopes of Off-the-Block Blog and a family of digital media creators of the Zapanta family (Jay, Rachel and Noah)! From there we chat about some of the top matches of the week, highlight play and other news items—like Penn St Head Coach Mark Pavlik’s 700^th win and the debut of the first-ever AVCA Player of the Year Watchlist.

As always, the guys pick their “Ballers of the Week,” and conclude with matches they’ll be keeping an eye on in week 7!

Thanks for listening/watching!

Episode 292, College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20, Week 5 Recap 02-02-26

"No Average Joe" episode!"

This week we bring on Men’s Volleyball Influencer, Joe McCurdy (@jtmvball on Instagram and TikTok) on the show to talk about the happenings in week 5 of the NCAA Men’s Volleyball season from a digital journalist perspective. Joe and Rob bounce between select matches of the top 20 and highlight key performances in those matches. Of course they take a stab at top athletes of the week, then pick out some of the top matches to look out for in Week 6!

Week 6 "Social Media Shout Outs" to @nekobavisuals and @buhlmedia and, @thevolleyballrecap!

Episode 291, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 4 Recalp 1-26-26

The Coaches' Panel is back after a busy week for Rob (apologies for no episode) at the Southwest Boys Classic after the First Point Collegiate Challenge! 

Rob mentions a few news items for the week with some first-ever victories for first year programs, (but he forgot to say, "Congrats," to Ohio St. Head Coach Kevin Birch for his 100th victory). 

The panel discuss the top 20 matchups that caught their attention during Week 4 play, From there they, pick some other matches that just were eye-catching outside the top 20 as well! Of course, they always pick there "Ballers of the Week," then the matches they'll be watching in Week 5!

Thanks for listening/watching and tuning in!