this has been Moore for 24 7 sports, and you're listening to the Monarchists.
Ricky Rahne:podcast
Mike:Hey Monarch fans, it's Mike from The Monarchists. Before we get to the show, we know it's Halloween season. You're thinking about trick or treating, but before you know it, Christmas will be here and the Monarchists are back with our Toys For Tots Drive, it will be the JMU game, Oyster Bowl. It will find us in the blue lot. and there will also be collection sites on 49th. Black and silver lot. So come bring toys. If you don't wanna bring a toy. We are accepting cash and there will be OTC members walking around with ammo cans. So please join us and help make great for these kids. All right, let's get to the show. Gary. Aaron, Tough weekend in Atlanta. I kind of wanna highlight a few positive things in ODU before we talk about this game. really big day from Taylor Heineke Today. He gets a late win over the Colts awesome clutch play from Taylor to get it done. He gets a new pair of Jordans, blue and white. secondly, ODU Field hockey wins the Big East Championship for the regular season. Been a long time since that's, Pretty awesome. So happy for them. And thirdly, the Royals announced ODU alum. Matt Pataro is the new manager for the Royals. So we have a Monarch leading a major league baseball team with another Monarch playing first base forum. So the Royals are officially Odus baseball team. Let's go. pretty. Right. Gary, Aaron, anything you wanna highlight from this past week in odu?
Gary:Yeah, a lot of good things going on. Uh, Happy for field hockey. That was a huge game against Liberty on Friday. winning in a shootout, getting eight saves, from our goalie there. that leads the nation in save percentage. Cam Mcil Ave. just great season. Way to keep a minute. Get the Big East Championship, hosting temple in the Big East Tournament on Friday at one. so if you're in Norfolk on Friday at one o'clock, get over there to L or Hill. just a great, great win for them.
Aaron:Yeah, Gary, I was, fortunate enough to be over there right after that win and I had an opportunity to talk to, Andrew and Tara Griffiths and there is a lot of excitement over there, so if people have an opportunity to get over there on Friday for that game at one, and then on Sunday, for that game, please come out, help us make some noise. We're gonna bring some folks out there and really try to make a nice home field advantage for our mon.
Gary:Yeah. And then, uh, od women's soccer gets back to back wins, to wrap up their regular season. can get in. It's a six seat in the Sunbelt tournament. they're gonna playing Arkansas State on Wednesday at noon down in Foley, Alabama. their regular season matchup. It's Arkansas State, They lost one to nothing. Arkansas scored their only goal with 28 seconds left. And about 90 seconds before that ODU had scored a goal that got reviewed and overturned because of off sides. It was a pretty heartbreaking loss. So hopefully they'll get some revenge. Open up the Sunbelt tournament with the victory, that I know. ODU Men's Soccer. They've got a huge matchup to end their regular season on Tuesday at home against Georgia State. It's gonna be at seven. if you can get out there on Tuesday and support them, they're in fifth place right now. but they're one point behind Georgia State in the standings. They're two points behind Marshall and three points behind West Virginia. So a win on Tuesday for men's soccer would help them greatly with seating as they go into, the Sunbelt tournament. Then, ODU volleyball split their series with App State over the weekend, one on Friday, three. Nothing fell on Saturday. Three one. They're gonna head to Atlanta for match up of Georgia State this weekend.
Aaron:I'd be remiss to say if y'all haven't seen the new Monarchist basketball show we had our first one that we just dropped this past week. Next week, on the 2nd of November, Tuesday is gonna be the first opportunity to see our new monarchs on the court over a chartway. So make sure you get out.
Mike:All right, so now we gotta talk about this game, guys. tough one in Atlanta. Old Dominion loses 31 to 17, drops to three and five on the season at two and two in the Sunbelt. a lot of, lot of things that just weren't going in our favor on Saturday. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I'm gonna let you guys kick us off first. Gary, I know you went down to the. What can you talk to us about this? The atmosphere down there, the stadium, the pregame, all that stuff.
Gary:Yeah, if I can avoid talking about the game for a few more minutes, that would be fantastic. well, so we, we got down there to the stadium area probably around like 11. it was. Really difficult to find a bar that was open within any kind of walking distance. We ended up at a nice little barbecue place that's kind of right behind what used to be the old home plate at Turner Field. They had to unlock the beer cooler for us, and the lady was like, It's 11 o'clock. Why are you getting beer? It's like, Well, there's a game next door here shortly. we ended up making it over at noon to the, Atlanta Alumni Association tailgate. Huge shout out to Matt. And, Brett Scott who put that on, easily over a hundred monarchs back there in the blue lot, having a great time. I think I'm gonna steal some of the food ideas they had. Uh, buffalo chicken spring rolls, probably some of the best things I've ever had. but great atmosphere over there. A lot of ODU fans had a great time. Matt even, got us a couple of nice cold fireball shots to make sure we continue the tradition before the game. the, the stadium, it, it's a little weird. I mean, it's still on the outside fully looks like a baseball stadium. inside, I think they've done a pretty good job to bring in some new stands that would normally kind of be behind like the dirt between like first and second, to kind of bring it in and not have it so wide open. we got in there, we end up going first row right in the end zone. I don't really know where our tickets actually were, but those seats were open along with many, many others to choose from. but it was, you know, kind of a. Echo E Environment. the ODU fans that were in our end zone were, were great. They were fired up, making noise. You could definitely hear us on the field. we even helped a couple times trying to get some, some challenges and replay reviews with some rough calls. But, you overall pretty, pretty good experience. We definitely go back there. We also got kind of a sneak peek of their new basketball arena that's right across the street. but yeah, it was, a tough game to watch, but pretty cool being, you know, basically could jump on the field from where I was and no one would stop me until I hit the 50.
Aaron:Yeah, but you'd probably pull a hammy and then fall down and it would just be bad news. Gary
Gary:I would've rolled both ankles going over the side. It was just been a disaster. But you know what? I would've tried
Mike:All right, so I'm not sure how we wanna go through this game. back and forth in first half, second half. we can't get anything going. I think the big issue here on Saturday is injuries. If we really want to be honest, we're short Koons. We all know we've, we've been missing him for weeks. Ali Jennings clearly didn't look anywhere close to a hundred percent. I'm sure everyone's banged up on this team and everyone's banged up on Georgia State, but not having a an all lead youngs that can go full go is, a tough one to tough hole to fill. Then Tyran Hunt was missing from the offensive line. And we know Blake Watson's banged up as well, even though he, he gutted through it. and then you have the defense. We we're missing, starting defensive linemen. we're missing Ryan Henry at Linebacker. I just, it's kind of hard to win when you don't have your dudes.
Gary:It's really difficult and this is probably one of the worst opponents. Up against with a lot of injuries on the defensive side of the ball. we know him more Morrison is, is out and likely not coming back this season. He's off the depth chart now. Ryan Henry, not starting. you know, Stevie Williams started in his spot and I think Stevie Williams played pretty well, but he's a different style of linebacker than Ryan Henry. Ryan Henry can kind of step up a little bit more in the, the run support Stevie's more of your fast cover guy that's gonna make some big explosive plays. but Georgia. Likes to grind you to a pulp. That is their offense. That's what they do. They 37 minutes and 10 seconds of possession this game compared to Odus 2250. the injuries did start to stack and, and I know Coach Ronnie afterwards is, is. Basically said, I'm not gonna use injuries as an excuse for this, but it, it's really tough. You know, you tyron hunt's out, you have Gary Hoover at Wright Guard. He gets hurt late in the first quarter and goes off and comes back on the field in a sling, and then you're, you're kind of plugging in freshmans at that right guard and, you know, give Georgia State credit. They targeted that part of our offensive line with stunts and blitzes and really forced a lot of pressure, disrupted the run game they were in Hayden's. Constantly throughout the game. but yeah, the, I don't wanna blame injuries for the loss cuz, you know, I think we should have the depth and the talent to continue playing, but it's really hard to ignore 'em after this one.
Aaron:mean, it is what it is. Gary. that is kind of the tail of the tape here. we had guys that were filling in and it was a tough, a tough sled. Georgia State ran for almost 240 yards and they just grinded it out. I know I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but that third and fourth quarter mean they had the ball for nine and a half minutes and the third, and basically 11 minutes in the, in the fourth. So there's not much you can do when you don't have the ball. And just, they just keep wearing on you and wearing on you and wearing on you. And as we talked about, in the preview, Granger was just lethal with taking what the defense gave him and running the ball down our throats. What did he have? Like almost 140 yards rushing himself, I think. Something like that. yeah, they just controlled it. I'm sorry, he had 113 yards, but they just controlled the clock.
Mike:So, another name I wanna mention is Devon. Brandon s he was out on the defensive. Which cause caused him to move Chaz Walls to the nose. He's usually, a three technique. So you got, you got guys playing outta position and you're missing a defensive alignment. Who's been one of your, the guys that causes pressure all year long and we just couldn't get that. Devin brand Abs has been fantastic this season and missing him is him and Henry. Just tough, the big turning point in this game for. Was that running into the kicker? they, they forced Georgia State into a three and out. They're about to get the ball back. Instead, we get the running into the kicker penalty and the defense at that point couldn't recover and stop them. And then the rest of the game, they just look gassed. leading to all of that time possession you mentioned.
Gary:That drive turned into a 17 Play ADR Drive. It took almost eight minutes off the clock. I understand getting pressure. I mean, that's what we do on special teams. We've bought kicks. but if you're not gonna get to the ball, you've gotta split and you can't hit the punter. It was just kind of a, a cluster of bodies there that ended up going into it. But that was brutal. And, you know, you, you look at our offense there in the second half, they, they didn't get many opportunities and they didn't take advantage of the opportunities they had. We only had. Offensive possessions in the second half and we went three plays, seven yards, punt, three plays, negative six yards fumble six plays 24 yards, punt five for 52 in a field goal, and then nine for 15, ending in an interception there at the end of the game. So really didn't even get the opportunity for our offense to make plays to get the ball down the field. Georgia State would just, could not get them off the field on third or fourth.
Aaron:Any time your defense is on the field for a 17 play drive, that can be tough to recover from. And in this game, it proved that that was the case.
Gary:Third and Longs continued to plug us as well. one of those later drives, we had the op, we had 'em at third and 11 had the opportunity to get 'em off the field, and they went with a tendency that you've seen from Georgia State a lot this season. Also, earlier in this game of third and 10 plus, you have a pretty conservative old school coach. Nine times outta 10, that's gonna be a screen or a draw. They ran a screen off to the right side. It went for about 15 yards and was the first down. And I just really feel like the defense was deflated after that play. you know, again, all the credit to to Georgia State, like they ran their offense. They did what they wanna do. We couldn't get them behind the sticks. We couldn't get them down to get them out of their rhythm that they wanted do offensively. they did some really great stuff with gra. To get him moving in the pocket right on the snap that basically killed any pass rush We had. It almost looked like the student body left. You see the ball get snapped in. All offensive linemen are doing the, the shuffle to the left and getting him in space to throw the ball down the field. they really utilized their talent well there at the quarterback position.
Aaron:One of the things that's, plagued Granger throughout this season has been inaccuracy, and we were talking throughout the game. Early in the game, and Mike had noted that he was inaccurate and he absolutely was. But then as the game went on a little longer, when he was having some of those, plays where he was on the move, he started to become a little bit more accurate. And once he did that, coupled with the running, we just couldn't find our way off the field.
Mike:Yeah, I think there's a point where the announcers going, He hasn't found thrash yet, and then like literally like the next play. He hits thrash for like a 38 yard catch. It's like that, that old jinx from the announcer, which happened multiple times in this, this game. I don't know, man. We, we did, I thought we did good against their running backs, but you gotta stop the quarterback from running. And I don't know, they learned pretty early on that they could get it on fourth down if they didn't get on third. Cause they were three, three or four on fourth. Then we go through the, the team stats. it tells the story usually for Odie with all these close games we've had. Where? Right. Well if you looked here and here, you'd think, Oh, ultimation one. Well, not this week. They got us on third down efficiency, as you mentioned. And they got us with total yards. they got us on rushing by a lot, over 200 yards. More rushing than we had. If you include sec, the SEC loss. They beat us in sex, penalties, turnovers, time possession, just, yeah, that's tough. but there were some positives. Let's focus on those. Jovonne. Harvey has a breakout game goes three catches from 124 yards, including a 61 yard touch time reception, which was huge in the first. Jordan Bly has his best game of his career at all. The six catches for 87 yards. those are the two that I would wanna highlight as guys that came through on defense. We had to stop by Jason Henderson breaking the tackle record, single season tackle record. And he's got four games lapsed
Aaron:That's crazy
Mike:He's gonna put up a number that might not ever get matched by anyone but him.
Aaron:and go through the most face mask.
Mike:Yeah, that those pictures were wild. And then Stevie Williams was pretty great at linebacker in replacement of Brian Henry. Really good effort by him on Saturday.
Gary:I was happy to see Javonne Harvey. Break one for a touchdown. Finally get in the end zone. Basically just shook the corner, out of his shoes and got wide open. Great pass right on the money. Georgia State has really strong dbs and that is also what hurt us late in the game, is that they were just covering really, really well. So Javon kind of. Stepped in that Ali role a little bit and got open, found space. Hayden was able to move around the pocket a little bit and find him when he had time. happy for him. on rewatch. The announcers were calling Jordan Dre Bly every time he made a play. So I thought that was, was pretty funny, but that pass he caught right there near the sideline. A nice little out route. He sticks. One foot in the turf, makes the catch. I saw, Coach Ronnie on the sideline give a nice fist pump on that and a little rick flair. Woo, when he, he brought that in. so, you know, good to see those guys step up. if you look kind of later in that game when, you know, Ollie's kind of on a. Little bit more of a snap count going the sideline, even Jovan. And, and I know Bly ended up in the tent at one point too. A lot of freshmen out there at the wide receiver core. getting some experience on the field, you know, you gotta continue to see that develop with, you know, Ali getting double covered on every single play. no Koons out there getting those guys some, some reps. Getting 'em out there is, is just gonna be good for us. you know, defensively, Stevie Williams, I thought he played pretty well. Stepping up into that role made some big tackles, some big plays. But it was, just, just too much Georgia State. They didn't take a lot of deep shots in that game. They were fine for three yards and a cloud of funny turf dust comes up. But they, they took their shots well. So when thrash was in single coverage iso on the outside, they hit 'em for two big pass plays, one of them being their second touchdown. So they picked their spots to, to take deep shots down the field and, and really, I thought just had a, had a well call game and they stayed very, very disciplined to what they wanted to.
Aaron:I think the silver lining here is those two young fellows that you just mentioned, Jordan Bli and Javonne Harvey. Getting an opportunity to step up in doing so was gonna pay dividends down, down the line and it was great to see, Javon there really show some strength to go along without route running and just. Dragged the defender into the end zone by his face mask. That was pretty impressive. Like you said, the, a little more uh intricate with the footwork there by Jordan of getting in there. And I know we haven't really mentioned Hayden much at all, but he was under duress. For the majority of this game. he got sack six times. He just didn't have a lot of time, but when he did, he made some really nice place and took the opportunity when he can. So I take that as a positive that I think we can build off of.
Mike:He also, uh, moved a little bit in this game. He had two rushes that were plus plays. and it was early. It was, those are all. In the first half, but, it was good to see him moving in the.
Gary:later in the second half. Georgia State was able to do the defensive coordinator's dream, and that was to get quick pressure with three or four man fronts and continue to cover really well. You know, the, the strip sack fumble that led to the touchdown that put Georgia State up 28 to to 14, that was only a three man rush. nose guard had a really nice swim move and there was really no one on that right side to help Xavier Black out with that, you know, Regar kind of went out and helped Sal with his block, came right in and just knocked the ball right outta Hayden's hands. It was, it was a tough day back there for Hayden, but he did move his feet. He moved up in the pocket where there was space. He had a couple runs, you know, the big pass play. He had to jevon Harvey. he rolled outta the pocket pretty well and basically got to the line of scrimmage and, and threw it down field and found. There was another one he had later in the game where there's a defensive holding is why it was incomplete. but, you know, it's, it was reminiscent a little bit of what Virginia Tech was trying to do against ODU early in the season to bring that pressure right up to middle, exploit those weak spots and, and flush Hayden out of the pocket. tough, tough day for him. I know that he, he got nicked up a little bit. I know he was a little slow to get up after one of the sacks laying on his shoulder pretty hard. But, you know, he's, he's a tough kid and he is gonna keep going. He knows he's gotta play better too.
Mike:Is there anything else you wanna cover in this game? Cause the faster we can just throw this one. Into the history books, just move on. is good for me. The faster we can do it, better
Aaron:Okay, we're done. Move on.
Gary:I, I want to talk one thing, and it's kind of like a,
Aaron:Damn.
Gary:well, it's a good segue to move forward.
Aaron:Okay, Gary, let's do.
Gary:All right, so we played eight games now. What we've seen this season, that's who we are moving forward. Like it's not three games in and we're trying to get better here, trying to get better there. We're, we're not a running football team anymore. We've proven we can throw the ball well. We have a lot of fast weapons if we can get the ball out quickly. The last couple games we've had to. Use the pass to set up the run. You know, we had the one great running game against Coastal, and that's kind of more of an outlier than the trend now. so I'm, I'm hoping as we go through this week and into future games, that we take a look and honest look at what we can do, what we can't do, and we lean into our strengths and try and use our strengths to open up the run game with those quick hitter passes. I mean, we did really well. We put guys in motion, hit the quick screens, the swing routes with with Blake Watson. I really want to just see us lean in to what we have actually done well this season from an offensive perspective and get away from thinking that we are going to be able to run the football against 7, 8, 9 man boxes. Cuz we tried that several times on Saturday. That happened right down on our end zone nine in the box. You have single coverage on the outside with. Three of our receivers and it's hand off, up the middle, hand off, up the middle. And I know we're back against the goal line and that's probably a smart move to run power and do that. but you saw Georgia State take advantage of when they had single coverage on their best receivers in running situations and they lit it up and got a touchdown. So just hoping to sees lean into those strengths as we move forward and, and put this game in the books.
Mike:All right. Fell. So this week we have Marshall coming to town, game's at Saturday at two o'clock, so get lots open at 10. Marshall is coming off a loss to Coastal Carolina. They were, they were led by their freshman quarterback who seemed to play well, but didn't get anything in the end. They've seem to be struggling on offense, but they have a quality defense, so it's gonna be really interesting to see how we match up with them considering where we have succeeded and failed in recent weeks. What do you think, Gary?
Gary:It's nearly a carbon copy of Georgia State. They are gonna run, run, and run some more. they've, they've got a lot there on the ground. they lost 24 to 13 Coastal Carolina, but they had 407 yards of offense, a little bit of an outlier. They had 320 yards passing and only 87 yards on the ground. I would expect to see them get back to their, their running game and what they like to do and control the clock. similar. Things are gonna need to happen for us to beat Marshall. That didn't happen at Georgia State. We need to fast start, we need to score, we need to get Marshall out of what they like to do. they don't like to throw the ball. They got kind of behind with Coastal. Had to throw it a little bit more than they like. And that's what we need to do as well. We need to carbon copy that Coastal Carolina blueprint that you saw on Saturday. Try to control time of possession and score. I don't care if we have the ball for 11 minutes if long as we're scoring in those three minute drives that we're so good at, at doing. but Marshall, it's, it's gonna be tough. Like there's the rest of the way backs against the wall. We have to win three of our next four to make a bowl. I, I hope that pressure leads to some success and really kind of brings out the best in us like it did last year. But, you know, expect Marshall to do everything they can to control the. Ground and pounds similar to Georgia State.
Aaron:The good news here. Is we have a season where we've seen that our team can play with their backs against the. Now we have some key injuries. We talked about that earlier. But this team and this coaching staff has shown the ability when it gets right down to it, and there's not a lot of room for error that they can play in this situation. So when things get tough, they're gonna remember how that was last time, and they're gonna be able to, play in those situ.
Gary:Kaylon Labour. We have got to stop him in the running game. Coastal did a pretty good job limiting him. He had 16, carries for 15, nine yards in a touchdown. he's really, really good running back and we need to isolate him. The good news going into Marshall, the. If Kim Fancher starts again for Marshall, he is not a dual threat quarterback. He was 19 for 36 for 320 yards. No touchdowns. No interceptions, but he had 13 carries for negative three yards. So he is not like Granger, who is not just a good athlete, but a good runner of the football. Like if you put him at running back, he's probably gonna go for a buck 50 every game too. so hopefully maybe taking. Piece outta the equation there will help our defense, just be able to get off the field and let the offense have some chances to work.
Mike:So column B got benched. And it's Fancher moving forward, or is it in an injury?
Gary:I'm not sure if it's an injury or benching, but either way, he was clearly not the guy there after the last couple games. Like he pieced it together for the JMU game. but you know, we, we saw them play games before that and it was like watching paint dry there on with their.
Mike:And Fancher did come in, for that JMU game, so I think he's actually played the last two games. let me look. Fancher is the only quarterback that took, a pass against Jamu.
Gary:So he did start, Okay.
Mike:It was the, Yeah, it, it was the Louisiana game where the switch happened. they split time in that game. I, I didn't watch that game, but I could tell you they both played cons, quite a bit in that game. I'm guessing that lack of offense was the. For them to make that change. this team has scored throwing out Gardner Web because it's fcs. Since they lost a bowling green, they scored seven against Troy, 13 against Louisiana, 26 against jmu and 13 against postal. Not a lot of productivity on the offense bin. I know Leor is a fantastic back and it's been really productive this year, but they are not getting it into the end zone very often.
Aaron:Well, guys, I'm really optimistic here because as you're just talking right there, neither of the quarterbacks, whether it's Columbia or it's Fancher, they haven't appeared to be threats on the ground. That's something. That y'all were discussing that our defense has to plan for, and Crainer made all the difference in the world with that ability, especially on those third down situations where, you know, he was able to get away sometimes and be able to extend those drives. Well, Fancher and Columbia aren't those kind of guys, so if the defense. Can focus on stopping the run with regards to Lebo. And he's the one guy, I mean, he's got over a thousand yards. The next guy has about 160 yards rushing. So clearly he's, he's the man right there, and Fancher. He's got two touchdowns, two interceptions, and been sacked 11 times. So there certainly seems to be opportunity there. Now, I know we've got injuries on the defensive line, but it appears that a variable is taken outta the equation here and maybe it's just a little less complex. So our guys that are coming in that don't have as much experience are gonna be able to concentrate, focus on what the defensive scheme is and make a difference.
Gary:Like we always hear from Coach Ronnie, it's, do your job, focus on your job. When you start worrying about trying to do other people's jobs is when you get into trouble. so I, I hope. We saw with Georgia Southern, we talked all week, Oh, they're gonna pass, pass, pass. And they came out and just ran it right down our throat. so I, I hope they're focusing on doing their job because there, there's a lot of room for optimism against this Marshall team. This is not the Marshall team that came in and blasted us at home a couple years ago, with a really high powered offense. It's gonna be a slug fest, so. Yeah, at this point in the season we've got five losses and you get two more and it's, it's curtains. No need to hold back on anything anymore. You want to get exotic with your blitz packages, your offensive plays, whatever. Go for it cuz your back's against the wall. It, it, you know. Why hold back anymore? So I'm, I'm hoping to see that and, you know, hopefully our defense gets a little bit healthier going in next week. Hopefully we get Ryan Henry back, get some guys in there, get him rested up. but yeah, I'm, I'm optimistic for this game, but certainly tempering expectations after, you know, what we thought would be a, a victory there in Atlanta this weekend.
Aaron:The other thing about Fancher is he's really not going down. That long. I mean, his average completion is about six and a half yards, which is less than what Columbia was, and he's only completing about 55% of his passes. So there will be opportunities in this.
Mike:I'm guessing that's a part of the playbook that's offered to a freshman. they're trying to shorten his passes, make the plays so he can get that confide. And if you look at what he did against JMU versus what he did this past weekend against Coastal, there was a pretty big improvement. He was a lot more efficient. He didn't turn the ball over. he's headed in the right direction for.
Gary:Yeah, and I, I will say Jamie's defense is pretty stout, so I. Jamie was probably giving a lot of those underneath routes in his first game, there in Harrisonburg. So we'll see. We need to put pressure on 'em. We need to be opportunistic with our turnovers. We had the chance for a couple this past Saturday and it just didn't, didn't really work out. We also had some, some bonehead penalties that extended drives too, that were really, really tough. But, you know, after the game kind of went over to where the buses were, just to try to get some sort of vibe from the players. Chat with some of the parents, you. They have not thrown in the towel by any means. You know, they were disappointed with the loss. They were mad that they lost cause I think they felt the same way, that this was a game that they should have and could have won. But there wasn't that heads down. Look, everybody had their heads up. Everyone was chatting, they were coming over. The fans. talked to Trey Hawkins for a little bit, DJ Mack, Ollie Jennings, a couple of those guys, and it's. We have to keep getting better. This thing is not over. We still have a great chance to, to be in a good position to, to make a bowl game and still compete for the Sunbelt East. so it was, it was good to see that they weren't totally deflated. I would've understood if they were, but they, they weren't. They had their heads up. They were pissed more than anything. And I kind of like to see them a little bit ticked off about that game.
Mike:So the, the books open this game at two and a half points in Marshall's favor. We are the underdog at home. the total is at 46 right now. So Vegas is not expecting a high scoring game versus what they expected at Georgia State. it's gonna be interesting to see how this comes together cuz in two different, two teams playing completely different styles.
Gary:I would say hammer the under on that 46. Hammer it hard if he can.
Aaron:I also say, air it out. Let's stop trying to hammer a round peg and a square hole. If we're better at throwing the ball, then you know what? Maybe we just need to go what our strength is there and live with the consequences of trying to play. That style of defense, we realize that we might be on the field a little longer than what we want, but hell, we were on the field longer than we wanted in this game anyway. So let's take those wins when we can get 'em. obviously it's gonna depend upon who we have healthy and what we're able to do. I know the coaches are the best ones at determining that, obviously. But, like you said before, guys, there's. No room for error and gotta take those chance.
Gary:I wanna see us come out and punch a team in the mouth for once. Like I want to just ambush them as we come out of the locker room and we get on the field. Row something at 'em we haven't seen before. Whether it's quick hitter passes, I know we've, we've tried some of that in the past, but I would love for us to come out, get that opening drive like we did against Coastal and Score, put that other team on their heels, get them outta what they wanna do, just wreck all the planning that they've had all week and just punch 'em in the mouth and let the crowd get.
Mike:So I was thinking about this the other day on Saturday. Other than coastal in every single game we've played, we've had to come from behind. Georgia State was only the second game all season where we were tied at the half or so coastal. We were the winning at the half Georgia State's, the only one that we were tied and not losing at the half. So I agree with you. I'd love to see us getting get ahead and not have to play catch up the rest of the game. It changes what you're trying to do and it forces you kind of into a box of what you have to do to, to win a game. So if we're also making requests, can we not do any more long slow developing screen passes to the outside receiver? It, it just looks telegraph every time we do it. if we're gonna do short passes, let's, can we do some short slants across the middle and more of. Get the ball in these playmakers hands and let them go to work.
Gary:This softens does well when we go fast. Pedal to the metal. And I know that's difficult cuz you put your defense on the field for longer periods of time. But we score touchdowns when we go fast, ambush them. Don't let anybody on the field overanalyze the play call that's coming in. Get the signal, get to the line, go, go, go. Because that, that's how we scored against. Virginia Tech. That's how I scored against uva. That's really what we did well against Coastal. We had a fourplay touchdown drive, yeah, yesterday against Georgia State. Go, go speed and then see what opens up from there. I if, if they start dropping eight in coverage run, fantastic. But we've gotta move quick and just look at what you've done. Well this year exploit that because that's who we are at this point.
Aaron:What we did well at ECU as well, and Marshall wants to run the. They get down two or three scores that alters fundamentally what they want to do and what they do well. So I agree. Let's give it a shot, man. Let's try to put some points up on the board. Let's punch 'em in the face, in a mouth, in a jaw. Punch 'em somewhere. Damn it. And let's get ahead and take it from there.
Mike:Um, I'm not sure if there's anything else we really need to cover this game. We have a lot of questions that need to be answered, but we're not gonna answer them. The only ones that could answer them is this football team and this coaching staff. Two home games left. Four games to go. We still have a chance to write our own story. Let's do it. Let's go. Balls the wall. Air it out. Play Good defense. Let's get it back on track. Let's beat Marshall. Let's go one and oh, let's go.
Aaron:Go Monarchs.
Gary:Go Monarchs balls out.
Ricky Rahne:podcast