Spartan head coach Chuck Erbe wants to see volleyball become a more popular and television-friendly sport.
So he scheduled an exhibition game for Oct. 30 with No. 9 Florida that would use experimental timed-game rules and would be televised on The Sunshine Network, Florida’s statewide cable sports channel.
But when he spoke with Gators head coach Mary Wise about a week ago, he learned the game would be a regular season, rally-score-format game.
So with permission from MSU’s Athletic Department, he canceled.
“They wanted it to be a regular match, and I was not consulted in that decision,” Erbe said. “It would not have followed the original formatting that we scheduled the match under.”
Florida has since rescheduled Louisville on that date.
But the cause for the switch may be a case of misunderstanding.
The live event would have been a timed game with a best-of-three game format. The first two games would have been 11 minutes with the clock running only while the ball is in play. The third game would have served as a three-minute tie-breaker.
The experimental rules are not sanctioned by the NCAA, and Erbe said the Spartans scheduled the match strictly as an exhibition.
“The intent was, as they say, ‘to get one in the can,’ as a preview of what volleyball could look like if we developed the television format,” Erbe said. “That match would’ve never been scheduled at that time during our Big Ten season because traditionally I don’t play any other nonconference matches during the Big Ten season. The Big Ten is tough enough.”
But Wise said she never felt the match was going to be played as an exhibition and said the Gators couldn’t use the timed-game format because of NCAA rules.
“We had not gotten permission from the NCAA volleyball committee to do anything other than use the recognized scoring system,” Wise said.
No experimental rules, no exhibition status. The game would be counted on both team’s records.
And that took away MSU’s motive to go there in the first place, said Brad Gust, an MSU assistant sports information director.
“This was initially an exhibition match, because the scoring format wasn’t sanctioned by the NCAA,” he said. “We were playing the match because of the format, and the coaches disagreed over that.
“We felt that we didn’t need to play another nonconference match in the middle of an already tough conference schedule.”
The Gators (12-1 overall) would have been a formidable opponent for the Spartans, especially in the midst of Big Ten play.
“There has to be an intent for the match, and I felt and the administration felt given where volleyball is and for the television issues to be solved, this was an investment in the future of our sport,” Erbe said. “
