Hi, I'm coach Ricky, Ronnie, and you're listening to the monarchist. podcast
Mon Nation, it's Sunday. So we're back with another post game recap with Gary and Aaron. How y'all doing tonight, guys?
Been, uh, been better, after both my team's taken a loss this weekend, but, had a, had a good time, at least on Saturday.
Had a great time with you guys this weekend. Phyllis, obviously between our monarchs and my commanders losing, I'm wearing a dark shirt to commiserate, but brighter times are ahead.
So we all know final score. Liberty 38 O 24. But before we get into the nitty gritty of the game, let's talk about our free game and the crowd and all that stuff. So late in the week, we made a plan to, abandon tail. Cause we didn't plan anything and we thought blue lot would be under water. So luckily we, uh we decided to try to bar hopping. We tried to hear the dog. What happened there, Gary?
It was, it was pretty packed, understandably so. It was gonna be like a 45 minute wait. So I popped down to Recovery Sports Bar and Grill over down 45th and Hampton. We basically started out with the whole bar to ourselves, which was pretty awesome. So I had a good time there. Ended up staying there until we had it over the stadium around the 5 15 5.
Yeah, it was great. I know we had a good time. The buffalo chicken sandwich was quite tasty and uh, we did have that place all to ourselves until tables started filling in. We had a baseball table right behind us. quickly became loud because when is it not loud? Whenever you run into Bobby Dro and, Mr. Ransom and Mr. Dangler and then all the fellows. So that was good to see. And then before you knew it, that place was pretty backed.
Yeah, it was pretty cool. Going to put a face to the name of, Dan Dangler. Keith Ransom, Bobby. Always a good time seeing Bobby. All right, so. I don't know about you guys, but I guess the rain scary court bit. The fans away. We had 18,000 announced. I'm guessing that would be tickets sold, but it was probably, I don't know.
I don't know if I could put a number on it, but it didn't seem like there was many, There was a lot of empty seats and there wasn't much as much red as I expected for an instate prop.
I think the threat of the hurricane earlier in the week kind of altered a. People's plans, and imagine Liberty fans, if you were looking at the weather on Tuesday, you're probably, There's no way I'm going to Norfolk and, you know, putting on my water wings and going to that game. I will tell you like driving from Richmond to Norfolk and then back to Richmond today, it's the easiest drive I have had on 64 in, in years when it wasn't like the middle of the night. I mean, it was.
Hour, 30 down an hour, 30 back, which is about as, as quick as you're gonna make it, you know, not going 90 miles an hour. So I, I think it wasn't just the o u game that got impacted by those plans. I think a lot of people just, they weren't going the beach that weekend. They were trying to stay away from the coast with kind of the uncertainty. It turned out to be a beautiful day for football. I mean, you don't get much better weather than that.
But just judging by the interstate traffic, I think a lot of people avoided going to 7 57 in the coastal areas. This.
Yeah, and we can't finish pregame discussions without talking about finally being able to make the connection with Brittany and. And I know y'all have been trying to do that for weeks though. Huge smiles. So that was pretty awesome.
Yeah, Brittany was very excited to meet Hudson, so appreciate y'all helping to, to make that happen. It, it made her week, she's a Virginia Tech grad, but she's the trooper and comes to pretty much all the ODU games with me. So, meeting Hudson definitely made her day, and I think she's been researching how much it costs to now sponsor and additional, muscle emission dog. So, we'll have to look at that. When Hudson's wrapping up his training here at the end of next.
All right. Now, we all know how the game ended, but let's start with the flu key first quarter, gets off to a weird start. We get that pass, liberty scores pretty quickly, but the plays to bias gets pass interference. The guy makes one of the best catches I've ever seen in my life. Live one. Hands it while he's boxing out to buy is pushing off of him. Honestly. Should have probably been offsetting past interference calls and replay the down. But what a catch.
Yeah, I mean he was incredible really all night, but that that one handicap in the end zone was impress. And to do it while stiff arming a defensive back out of the back of the end zone. Tobi kind of grabbed his arm to hold, hold on, really to keep from getting kind of blown out the back of the end zone, but incredible catch. I'm sure that made Sports Center top 10. I was not, interested in watching that later in the day.
Yeah, I didn't look, I heard it actually made number one, but you're absolutely right. It should have been offsetting penalties as, I mean, those guys were both going at it. There's either no call, or you gotta call that on both of them, but it was a phenomenal catch. I mean, it, it hutch the crowd. We were all looking at each other like, you know, what do you do there? I mean, even the players on the sidelines were like, that, that, that's a great catch.
Yeah, and it was kind of in this sequence of really like three or four. Really unfortunate plays for ODU in the first seven and a half minutes. I mean, really third play of the game, Zach Koons goes down within the injury, on watching it. It was, it didn't look, didn't look great on the camera.
Didn't wanna watch it too many times, but I was a little bit hopeful in the fact that he didn't immediately go to the locker room, didn't come out in immobilize like he was on the bike a little bit, walk around the sideline, you know, certainly don't know the extent of, of that injury. I'm. Our athletic training staff and Justin Walker will be doing everything they can to get him right.
You know, just wish Zach nothing but the best, not only for ODU and their season this year, but his draft stock and draft status. I mean, never, never want to see a guy like that who works so hard and has been just great for us. Go down with an injury and, you know, impact him long term.
Yeah, I did notice that at the end of the half he grabbed his helmet and he did jog into the locker. So, sending good vibes his way, that it's just something after a couple weeks of rest that he's good to go. Be lucky and just be a sprain or something like that.
I was told today he, there's no concern about him missing the next game. He should be good to go for Coast.
That is, that is great news. So Zach Hoons goes down. First kind of unfortunate event that happens. Uh, next play. You know, pass over the middle, to what would've normally been Zach's route. Passes a little high, a little hot, but definitely on the hands kicks and bounce perfectly up to Liberty's. Safety gets intercepted, run back. Next play is the amazing catch in the end zone. Just kind of a funky sequence, to start the game. Normally we're complaining about.
The offense got off to a slow start, couldn't stop doing three nows. We actually didn't, we got our first down on our first play. I thought the offense looked good. We were creative and doing things we haven't done before. Great having Blake Watson back. So the, the kind of rough start to go down early was just kind of just fluky was weird.
Speaking of flu, so, So after they score, we exchange a few fonts, and then there's the next touchdown, which should. Falls into Robert Kennedy's hands. He can't get control of it and bounces right into a Liberty offensive player's hands for a touchdown. Unlucky, I can't, I can't really crush Robert for dropping the ball. It happens. But you'd like for him to catch that? I mean, it's right at his.
You know, it's one of those things that it just bounced off. The Liberty wide receiver just happened to be running towards it, and it came right to 'em. Like you said, as fluky as it gets, sometimes the ball just bounces your way. Sometimes it bounces the other way. And early in that game, the ball just bounced Liberty's. Nothing else to say about that.
And, you know, credit to, to liberty for not giving up on the play. I mean, that ball was overthrown by 10 or 15 yards and I think it kind. Surprised everybody on the field a little bit, how far overthrown that ball was. It coulda could have been a pick.
You know, it's always easy for me to say that sitting in the stands about 12 beers deep, but it, it is like, what are the chances that bounce is so perfectly back to liberties wide receiver who's still running down the fields and they could play, gets it, and goes in the end zone and all of a sudden it's 14 to nothing before you really know what's going on out.
In Stride. The guy, the guy didn't even break Stride.
no, from my angle, it was clear that he was taking a B line to Robert. He was prepared to tackle and that was why he was coming right out. So, I think the receiver was just making a play and it just happened to bounce right into his hands after that, that
it it looked like the most perfectly executed hook and ladder you've ever seen. That's what it looked like.
Yeah, really unfortunate series of events. But ODU responds really well with a long touchdown drive. They play starting five yards. They even had some penalties mixed in there, but they kept on chugging and showed some resiliency. We got Peter kick water sighting. Nice 23 yard catch. Marque Bell made a play. He had a catch, I think both making their first catches of the year. Is that right?
Believe so. I think Ki Guda may have had one or two other catches, but, but not a lot. And really it's, you know, you lose that coons who's such a huge weapon in your offense. I mean, he's, if if, if he's not getting the ball, it's gonna be Ali Jennings, you know, in, in the passing game. So it's kind of, you know, the, the challenges issued to the other skill players, like who is gonna step up and, and carry that load and, and be that.
I, I thought there's several people that did, Jevon Harvey had a fantastic football game. He doesn't always end up on the stats sheet, but he does a lot in kind of the, the decoy game of getting people open. He does a great job blocking, on a lot of plays. But to see him get some catches, get some yards, really build his confidence there was great to kind of have that. Extra person step up. Then also Blake Watson making catches out of the backfield.
I mean, he had a, a heck of a game receiving the ball too. But it, it's, it's what we've seen from ODU all year. Like they get kind of punched in the mouth early and it wakes him up and they respond accordingly and, and come right back.
And then Gary, we're talking about first here to cap this drive off. What first do we see?
I was losing my mind in the stands. Hayden Wolf kept on a re option off the right side. Looked like a gazelle going into the end zone. He ran the ball quite a few times in this game. I thought this was probably best game of Hayden's career. Most complete game of Hayden's career. You know, he had, he had talked about a lot of external factors were, were weighing on him with, you know, basically his hometown was right in the path of Hurricane Ian.
A lot of friends and family were impacted, you know, homes completely wiped out and he kind of said, you know, if, if they can get through all that, I think I can get through a college football game. He played with incredible confidence with poise. He looked like he was having fun out there. But I mean, I, I probably annoyed everybody in section 1 0 7 screaming Hayden kept the ball or for about 30 seconds after he scored there.
One more note on since you brought him up. He had an amazing on a plant is great. Like just a phenomenal that in for no game. I remember being like that was, shocking there. But the Run by Hayden, perfectly set up naked Boot Lake to the right side with no one home and he outruns the one defender that's chasing him. Happy to see it. One. Wanna see more of it. really great play by Hated.
after he ran the balls, I was trying to pay particular attention to this. I think it was after the second time he ran the ball, he seemed to gained some level of confidence like, Hey, I can do this. I can run the ball. You know, I can find my way through the line here. And, you know, he made some rushers miss moved in the pocket Looking up and keeping a good scan of the field of who he was gonna throw it to if it wasn't there.
He hesitated less running the ball than we've seen him before, so hopefully it's one of those things. He realizes that he's got another tool in his tool belt, and when it's appropriate, he won't hesitate to use it as much.
Yeah, it would've been nice to see him keep on another RPO type play. But the other runs we saw him have were scrambles. Um, next Drive from Liberty. Pretty short. One Saltar getting, pressure throws a pick, or gets the ball and has a nice eight play 40 yard touchdown drive capped off with the pasta Ali. Some key plays on this. We had a holding that brought us to first and 20, and the, the big play there was the back to back passes to Ali Genics. Ali continues to be phenomenal for us.
I think he's now leading to the country, yards.
and, he was getting a lot of attention from the Liberty defense amount. Most of those catches on that drive. He was in double, if not triple coverage, and he was able to shake free. He'd made some great passes through traffic to get the ball to him. Also I really liked on this drive is that we went quickly and tried to kind of ambush and, and take the momentum, the interception, you know, redemption for, for Robert Kennedy, getting the interception on that play.
Again, another pretty horribly thrown ball by Salter. I, I, I don't know, maybe he is still injured and he's just not able to throw the ball very well, but I, I don't think I've seen a quarterback be that inaccurate in a long time. And he, he made great plays with his feet, moved in the pocket, you know, the first touchdown pass through, he escaped pressure, got to the outside through on the run and put one right on the money.
So it almost seemed like when he had time, he was worse throwing the ball than, than when he didn't. But the, the offense went quickly. And I thought this was another good example of old Dominion's offensive line really having come together, since the Arkansas State game. They were good the whole night. There were very few guys getting in, totally unblocked, and they were going against two really good defensive ends throughout the game.
But it's kind of one of those things, you know, the blocking is there, heys moving in the pocket guys are getting open. And then, you know, Ali Jennings just making three incredible catches on that drive.
Our next drive from Liberty is a seven play 83 yard touchdown drive. This is right around the beginning of the second quarter. We had some good plays on this drive. Chris Tri got a sack, with Denzel Lowry, but penalty keeps that one alive. And then Dayday Hunter breaks free for a 29 yard run. He was phenomenal against us. Saw Saturday night, I mean, he was the star of the show for Liberty.
Yeah, I mean, we knew coming in that he was gonna be a problem. But, you know, 15 carries 122 yards and two touchdowns also, three catches for 60 yards in the touchdown. I mean, just, just a great talent there. That's the kind of one of the key things that, you know, and I heard this in the Postgame press conference as well. Tackling and gap assignment was a problem for us on certain drives, some drives. We were great. We stayed disciplined. We made great tackle.
But really on this drive, kind of the, the mis tackles being a little bit out of position in the second level really, really hurt us when there were times we could have gotten off the field. But again, you're, you're trying to, to tackle a really, really good running back. And it's not easy, but you know, Jason Henderson talked about a lot in that postgame press conference. Like, we have to tackle better.
We've got guys in position and they're just not making the plays, and we have to get better.
All OD responds with a 12 play, 58 yard drive that is ended with a field goal making the game 21 to 17. The key play on this drive was probably the 27 yard pass, Toon Harvey. He had a, what? Seven. Seven catch night? 70. Around 70 yards.
Yeah, he caught every ball, every target he caught. Seven or seven. Pretty, pretty impressive Last.
Okay. He's coming into his own,
Yeah, I mean, it was obviously like to get a, get a touchdown on that drive. But the, the down and distance kind of got extended by a couple penalties there, and we had to go for the field goal. But Ethan Sanchez. Blasting went through like it was, like it was nothing. So it was good to get the points there, cut it down to the left than the touchdown.
After that, Liberty and ODU Exchange punts on the next four drives. The final play of the half. He's an 11 play, 62 yard drive from Liberty that has ended with a sack and then an interception. The pressure got to Salter and he made a bad decision. I think that was Robert Kennedy. That gets his retribution on that one.
And that's the last time we see Saltar for the.
That's
Yeah, I think that was Trey Hawkins that had that pick. Kennedy had the, the first, first pick earlier in the game. But it was kind of again, a a, he got absolutely smoked as he let that ball go. I believe it was Marcus Haynes that hit him. Ball kind of just gets thrown almost straight up in the air. It was kind of the longest, like two seconds of your life, wait for that thing to come down. Get to pick, get a little bit of a return.
But, you know, into the end of the half there not letting Liberty get points to, to extend the lead was big. You felt like Old Dominion had a lot of momentum going into the locker room. Defensive play. Well, Salter couldn't complete a pass. But you know, that, that changed the dynamic a little bit when we started up the third.
All right, so halftime 2117. Liberty decides to go to Bennett. I don't blame him for it. Salter might be, may have had one of the worst quarterback performances we've seen in Ballard. He just lacked accuracy past 10 yards. Definitely the worst visiting quarterback we've seen in a while. All right, Liberty and ODU exchange. Punts on the first two drives, the second half, and then Liberty has a seven play 29 yard drive that ends with the field goal pushing the game. The 24 to 17.
Yeah. And o's first drive of the, the second half, you know, started at their own five yard line. I mean, they were, they were backed up from the. So really the, the whole flow and dynamic of the game changed in the second half. Like I, I had to go and make sure that the box score was accurate, but Old Dominion only had five offensive drives in the entire second half. To give you some perspective on that, we had five drives in the first quarter of this game.
Liberty with Bennett coming out there, went to more of a ground in town. We're gonna run. We're gonna take the 40 seconds on the play clock and we are gonna shorten this game and limit the number of possessions that ODU gets. They were pretty effective in that. And then the few drives that Liberty had, I believe that they had six, in the second half. They made the most of those drives.
All right, so 24 17 ODU responds very well with an eight play 75 yard touchdown. Drive off with a 16 yard pass from Watson.
Yeah, I was impressed with Blake last night. Can tell he is a difference. Maker can also tell that he was hurting last night, every time he pulled himself off the turf. You can tell that it took a little bit, but. The dude is a warrior. He was out there making plays. He's a difference maker clearly. But I'm glad we're into the bi week to give him a chance to kind of get back, a little bit, a little bit healthier and hopefully not be quite as nicked up.
So on this drive, we also saw the other big run from Hayden. The 10 yard, the 10 yard run that you had on the scramble.
Yeah. I mean, Yeah, I mean, just, just another good example of him being able to extend plays and add another weapon to our toolkit offensively. It was forcing liberty to account for him in the offense on the ground, so you saw a little bit less pressure when we did have have some running plays. You know, Blake Watson, he had 15 carries and had six receptions, so 21 touches. There were also four plays where he got a touch, but it was wiped off the board because of a penalty.
So, I mean, he had pretty heavy workload on Saturday night. And you know, he was banged up coming in. You obviously missed the Arkansas State game. It. We don't put out any kind of public injury list or questionable doubtful, anything like that. But with the five really tough games we've had to start this season, I imagine that that questionable, probable list would be pretty long. Like anyone that's got a decent number of snaps, they're banged up, bumps, bruises, sore, wrist, knee, whatever.
I mean, it, it wears on you. And we've played five very tough, very physical football teams. So I think the, the bi week is coming at a very, very good time for us to, to get a little bit healthier.
All right. 24. 24. All Liberty responds themselves with the six place, 70 yard touchdown drive. This is the one when we had the illegal substitution on the kickoff. I guess that would be the equipment in, one, right?
Yeah. Was that the, the two number seven jerseys
Yeah. Asbury and, who was it?
Amari Young Grainger was the other seven.
it is. GR and Asbury on the field. Illegal equipment. Now we know that's
That's an actual thing.
That's what the penalty is when you have two people in SAN Number. Cause I, I hear legal equipment and I'm thinking, All right,
got spikes on their shoulder pads, like the road warriors or something like that. You know, a funky laser visor. But no, two of the same Jersey.
Yeah, and normally we use like a Tearaway jersey to go over top of any duplicate numbers that are on special teams. I, I don't, don't know how, how that happened, if it fell off or, or what, but you know, the, the touchdown drive that gave Liberty the lead. They had a, it got finished up with a pretty long run. And I think this is kind of some of the things we're talking about with the officiating of, you know, you can call holding on every play, right?
Like a hold happens how ticky t do you want to be? But if you're gonna be kind of ticky, ack and heavy on one side, you should probably not miss blatant penalties on the other side. And on this play, the run goes to the right side. It's kind of a stretch play. Trey Hawkins is in position to make this. And somebody in a Liberty jersey from behind grabs him by the face, face mask and yanks him out of the play.
You call it a hold, you can call it a face mask, whatever you want, but Trey Hawkins is there to make that tackle and he's basically not able to happens for everyone. We saw it from 1 0 7. You don't get that call. They score touchdown, They take the lead. We, we never get back into the game From that point. There were a lot of those kind of like, if you're gonna call it one way, call it the other kind of things. And I think that's what.
Coach Ronnie so frustrated throughout the game is that, you know, you get three penalties for 30 yards in what? 12 for 140 on the other side, or 14 for 120, whatever it was.
Yeah, we haven't even talked about some of the other weird calls or inconsistent calls throughout this game.
we're bringing up. Let's talk about it.
All right.
we had, Liberty has that big run up the sideline. He clearly steps outta bound. We all see his foot on the white. They review it. So we're hopeful, Okay, they're gonna bring it back. They review it for forever, what felt like forever, and then come back. Then they say, Oh, place dance. I, I still don't understand that one.
Obviously the, the penalty discrepancies is ridiculous considering how much they were running and how much of their successful runs were stretch runs to the outside, which are gonna have holds. And then we have the, the, the difference in how the lateral passes that were behind the line of scrimmage and backwards, were both treated the exact same play for both teams. Liberty should have lost 14 yards on that play.
Instead, their, their play is just called an incomplete pass for whatever reason, which I, I can't figure out, that ends up leading to a fuel goal for right.
Yeah, I mean they, they call that an incomplete pass. It's a 14 yard swing, and they were barely in field goal range. I mean, he had to kick a pretty long field goal, to get that. But I, I, I rewatched that multiple times trying to figure out the justification on, you know, why I got overturned. Cause they called it correctly on the field. The referee's on the field called that play correctly. The, the, he does get hit when he throw.
But the ball lands four yards behind where he is standing and goes outta bounds. Like it's a pretty clear fumble. It's not, you know, the, the Tom Brady Tuck or the open hand rule, like that's where the ball was thrown to, almost as like, I'm getting hit and I have to dump this pass. And then you see the exact same scenario unfold for odu. With Hayden Wolf and it's called a fumble on the field and doesn't get overturned. And it, it's, it's just frustrating with his inconsistencies.
And I'm pretty sure that's when, when Coach Ronnie, was just letting the rest have it on the other side. And, and I don't blame him. He, he usually keeps his composure on those things, but it gets to the point where you have to stick up for your guys. And I was, I was happy to see him do that.
It is. We've heard Ricky talk about that multiple times. He understands there's gonna be calls and he wants there to be calls, but I. What he's conveyed is what upsets him the most is when the calls are inconsistent and clearly there were inconsistent calls last night on a number of occasions, but the two plays that you just talked about, Gary, are probably the biggest ones. And you're right. That's, that's kind of when, Ricky channeled all of us.
And had a nice discussion with whatever officials would listen to him. It took him a while to be able to get him to actually come over and listen to him, but he definitely gave them some feedback.
So he said that on this show, if you remember, my biggest issue with the referees was them not calling the games consistent both ways, and he agreed with that. And last night we could, I think any OD fan that's honest with themselves and any Liberty fan that is honestly looking at this game should be able to admit that this game was not cold both ways.
Yeah, and, and I won't say that the officials are the reason that we lost that football game. There were, you know, plenty of other factors that that could have, have changed the outcome from plays to. Whatever it was, tackling all those things, but it really just, you can't completely rule it out as a factor because of, of what the impact it had. I mean, you're talking about touchdowns that would've gone on the board, gone off the board field goals that would've been made.
You know, I, I, I thought the officials in the Arkansas State game. Did pretty well and let a lot of stuff go, like we didn't talk about on the podcast last week, but I kind of followed up with some tweets of how chippy that Arkansas State game was when there were a lot of hits after the whistle. There's a lot of stuff on the sideline, but to the official's credit, they didn't call it on odu, they didn't call it on Arkansas State.
I think both teams were equally guilty of some after the play shenanigans, but they, they just let it go and, you know, I, I would much rather see ref let little holds go either. And rather than, you know, start missing blatant face mask and calling the most ticky tack holds that you've, you've really seen on replay review. I know, I think in the Sunbelt you can submit 10 plays for reviews on officials.
I imagine that, you know, Coach Ronnie is probably having to bring about 50 to the cutting board to make sure he sends the, the top 10 there to the.
Aaron.
No, I'm still thinking about that face mask, know it's a 30. It's a 32 yard run if it's called a face mask. Well, it's called a face mask. What's that? 15. If it's called a hold, it's 10. So now I don't even know what down, down was there. I was trying to scan through the plays.
It was second and sticks.
second and six. So I mean, now you're talking about second and 16 or you know, second and 21 at the 42 yard line instead of a touchdown. That's a pivotal play.
That
was 24. It was 24. 24 at that time.
It would've moved it back to the 47.
I think we were, I think it was a tie game at that point. May I, I could be wrong. Maybe we were down seven. I
It was it.
right. It was the touchdown winning drive
Yeah, so absolutely there, there were tons of opportunities missed for us in this game. We didn't tackle as well as we could have. There were lots of missed opportunities, but to just say that there weren't opportunities where this game shifted. That is a critical point in the game that the lack of a call, none of us are arguing that any of the, the penalties on odu were not legit. You know, when we rewatch that we see their legit.
But really the, the argument, like we said earlier, is the lack of consistency of what was called on that side. And that was one example of a lack of a call creating a huge turning point in the.
If we look at the stats, if you didn't know the final score, you would assume O you we won time of possession, we won the turnover battle. Yards. Were pretty close. They all ran us. But overall you'd think, yeah. Oh, you probably won that game if
We'll take that. Take that 32 yard run off the board.
Yeah. But credit to Liberty's, skill position players, I was really impressed by them. They had some really good players that receiver and running back that, were pretty impressive.
Yeah, I mean for, for them to put. Points they did with, you know, basically their second string quarterback who had a really bad night in the first half, bringing in a third string quarterback who, you know, did, did not look good, in, in their game last week. But you know, only through nine passes, but completed, seven of them looked, looked pretty good. Their, their skill position players are fantastic.
I mean, Hunter Yarborough Lewis, they, they've got some great skill players in a lot of places and they made big. You know, we were missing tackles, but at the same time they were, they were causing a lot of those missed tackles. So yeah. Their, their skill position players were, were pretty strong on the side of the ball.
No.
All. So the rest of the game we don't really need to talk about, We don't what happened at this point.
Well, I, I do want to give a shout out to Old Dominions defense, for, for us being down two scores at that. To not give up. It would've been really easy just to let Liberty punch it in there. Like, you're down two scores, you're probably not coming back to win that game. But as we've seen all year, they don't quit. They take every play and, and they made the stop there. Then Liberty misses the field goal and then all of a sudden our, we're not totally outta this game.
Like, we have a chance we, it's gonna be tough. We could score two touchdowns, but credit to them for continuing to play hard and, and work hard and take pride in not letting those points get scored. So, That's the only thing I wanted, wanted, discuss that, but I wanted, make sure I gave the defensive shout out for, for showing zero. Quit on that.
Yeah, absolutely. Daveon was pretty good down the stretch after that eight play 99 yard drive that we didn't talk about from Liberty.
Well, very easily could have been a three and out, but there was a defensive holding penalty. You know, Liberty probably should have been putting outta the shadow of their own goalpost and giving us pretty good field position. But, you know, 50 50, whether that was a defensive hold, like you could go either way. But obviously that call on Saturday night was, was gonna get called.
Any 50 50 was more like 95 5 last night. The coin had two heads. We got no favors at all.
No. All right. 38 24 O loses. We are now two and three on the season. We're headed to the buy week. Before we talk about the buy week and the rest of the season, let's first talk about your stars of the game for odu.
Yeah, I mean, I, I, I've gotta look over the defensive side of the ball. And I'm gonna say Alonzo Ford had two sacks on the night. Was really a, a force to be, to be reckoned with on that side. It was, to, to see him step up. There are some other guys I could mention, but Aaron, I will, I'll let you take the, the offensive star.
Man, there's a couple, and I'm afraid I'm gonna steal mics, but I'm gonna go with Javon Harvey. Jovan stepped up big. I mean, obviously in the box score you see the seven catches for 64, but he did some other things throughout the game that don't necessarily set on the stats. So it's always nice to see, especially 7 57, you know, representing home. But I was impressed with Jevon. He had a great game last night.
I'm going to list two here. First is Blake Watson. 15 carries 80 yards. Averaging over five yards of carry. Most of that's because of that big 30 yard run. But he also adds six catches and 60 yards receiving. So 140 all purpose yards. Pretty great night. Happy to have him back. He was phenomenal. O obviously all Ali continues to be a superstar for us, so we're kind of at this point you have an eight catch night for 129 yards. And it's like, okay, that's just what he does now,
He's pinned. He's pinned on our player of the game, he is every game we're just adding to it.
So, but my other one was actually gonna be Ethan. Dwayne. He continues to be a phenomenal punter. He was awesome. Again. Six, six punt 42 yard average. He pinned three inside the 20, his long was 49. I mean, he was, Good at not out kicking his coverage and putting them in a tough position to.
Dude talk about, talk about the one kick. Kicking towards the, north end zone. And there's this dude to my right. So Ethan kicks this ball, we're pun from like the 40. So it's a short field already. People are like, Why aren't we going for it? So he kicks a ball and this guy's yelling like, Oh my God, why would you do that? And the ball's got kind of, as opposed to a spiral.
It's, it's backs spinning and I, I swear that thing must have hit on the one yard line or the two yard line and kicks back. And special teams goes down there and secures that thing right on the one yard line. And I turn and look. And we both just smiled. No words needed. And it was just like, all right, that's why you do that. And.
Yeah, and it. To see Ethan have another good night. I know his parents were there again for the game last night. So, two for two, with the, with the parents in attendance. I'm glad he's got to have two games, but, and no one else said it, that I will say from the offensive side, Hayden Wolf in Hayden Wolf Feet. That was, it was so great to see him. He just looked like he was actually having fun playing football for the first time in a while.
Like relaxed, confident, like being that true leader on the offense. Like I, I hope that is like the start of the trend of seeing him play that way and knowing he has that confidence because it, his ability to move in the pocket and make the runs and, and keep the. Like that helped our offense considerably. It opened up the run game. It, it, it got receivers open. It made the job at the offensive line who played really well on Saturday, even better. But just really happy for Hayden.
I know he had a lot weighing on his mind and a lot of stuff going on, but I thought he played an exceptional football game, and I hope that we see that even more coming outta the bi.
Before we move on, I want to also give a shout out for the, the defense. I know we struggled. Running backs, but they did a good job pertaining the quarterbacks on the run in this game. That which, which has been a problem all season. And it was my major concern coming into this game, given Salter's ability with his feet. Neither one of their quarterbacks didn't, did much running the ball, combined. Yeah. So that was, that was positive for me. I dunno.
Yeah, they, they did some creative things on the defense side of the ball, so basically contained Saltar to the pocket and make him pass. And as we saw, like when he got contained in the pocket, he did not throw the ball very well. Like he's very much that gotta get outside and throw on the run kind of person. So, yeah. Well, well deserves shots. The defense for stopping the QB run.
Hopefully that can be a blueprint for us moving forward against some of these other dual threat quarterbacks We're gonna. Because, you know, I hate to break it to you, but after the bi-week, it's not like the schedule gets any easier.
Yeah. Grayson McCall's waiting for us. All right.
there's a, there's a couple bad boys coming down the line for us for.
Chase, Bryce to Mateo. Yeah, there's some good ones in there. So we're the, a good time to get healthy, but also it's a good time to work on stuff. What would you guys like to see get worked?
I, I think this is a great time to make some, some big tweaks to your offensive side of the. We ran the ball well against Liberty and we started getting some things to open up. But I think some of our original concepts of running and how we ran the ball last year are just not going to be our, our strength this season. You've kind of seen the adjustment occur over the last couple games where we're throwing the ball more using the short pass instead of the run game.
So I, I definitely wanna see some, some tweaks in that aspect. How we run the ball, how quickly running back could still line the scrimmage work on things like that. Then of course, you know, anything we can add from a passing perspective. And then our, our freshman wide receivers, grainer Kick wa. Getting them more involved in the playbook. They're incredible athletes. They're gonna make big plays.
Having this extra week to install them on some more packages will benefit us going down the stretch, especially if Koons does end up being out for an extended period of time. Hopefully not. He can have my knee, my ankle, whatever, like I don't really use it anymore so he can have it to get better.
Yeah, I'm thinking about the defensive side of the bowl. It's obvious that's a squad and those guys had it going on. But I wanna see us continue to get that type of pressure, especially on these quarterbacks that, move around and wanna run, it's harder to block for those kind of guys. So to be able to, get more pressure on those guys to.
More difficult passes and hopefully lead to some turnovers, whether they're, you know, sack fumble type, or letting our defensive backs secure some interceptions like we saw last.
Yeah, to, to piggyback on that real quick. Third and long defense. We've been good on third and short, but third and long, we've given up some big chunk plays, so I'd love to see some, some adjustments there in how we approach those like third and 10.
Yeah. I'm not gonna add anything there cause I'm not sure there's anything else that really needs to be focused on, offensively, defensively. You guys nailed it. So let's move on to our last segment of the night and reasons for optimism at two and three.
Well have some optimism there because we could have gone oh and four in non-conference play. I mean, you know, when. Talked about this before the season started. We knew that our non-conference play was really, really difficult. We were playing four really good teams. We weren't sure what to expect. You got to win against tech. Probably should have been able to, to get a win there at uva. But we're two and three. We have seven games left.
I, I think we've learned more about our future Sunbelt opponents that maybe don't make them as scary as they were preseason. They're still really good. but I'm, I'm glad that we're sitting here at two and three. And not one in four. Cuz I think if we were one in four, we'd be having a little bit different conversations right now. And also I just, I, Saturday night was, I feel like the best our offenses played all season. We finally got balanced in time of possession.
We ran more plays than they did. So, you know, there's no moral victories in the loss. Like you either win or you lose. But to see the offense kind of morph and show signs of like, we're getting better and we're getting better and we keep getting better. Having that momentum going into the bi-week and then into really some hardcore conference play that gives me some optimism that we're gonna be able to score points and not end up in these holes early.
You know, weird bounces, you know, permitting.
I'm optimistic for all the reasons Gary talked about Hayden in. And having pep in a step, having fun seeing them use those feet, not turning the ball over or turning it over with a very small frequency, but the emergence of more than just. Zach and Ali. So we've got guys that have been forced to step up when Zach got hurt. So I think that's gonna pay dividends in the back after the season of those guys getting reps, real game reps, and being able to contribute meaningful plays down the stretch.
Yeah, I think this is the most receivers he hit in a game. He had nine, nine different guys. Register a catch in this game. I'd like to see that continue. Spreading around the ball is a great thing for the offense and just makes everything easier. I would like to see Jordan Bly, Bell and Kwa and Ranger. All those guys get more. But, I still like this team a lot. This defense is, is pretty damn good.
But if we can improve on third down, like you mentioned in the last segment, it could be really, really good. I hope I'm not just getting clouded for my judgment, all of our years of no to you, but I like this defense All right, Charles. So Aaron, do you wanna tell everyone about what we got planned this week? All right, Phyllis. So this was our fifth and final straight week of attending football games for odu. Week. I know Aaron probably does.
We've, we haven't missed a game in person yet, and we we're tired. We need this time, this Saturday to recover. Let our livers repair a little bit. For the rest of the second half of the season and this great week of podcast, we got head headed your way. So thank you guys for joining me tonight, Monarchs.
Go Monarchs.
Go Monarchs.
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