Monarch Nation, we are back after our trip to Columbia, joined here as always, but with Gary and Aaron, fellas, how are we feeling today? Hey man, I'm feeling as good as you can feel after a loss. It was a great trip. The guys played really hard, they played really well, and we were in it right to the very end, so I'm feeling pretty damn good. I think I'm still pretty dehydrated, a little bit sunburnt. I figured I'd rep the USA today with the red, the white tan line and the blue shirt.
So, uh, still, uh, still pretty frustrated with the loss yesterday like that. We just handed that one over, but other than that, feeling pretty good. Got back before the storms got too bad down there. Uh, but yeah, excited to talk about it and look forward to ECU next week. All right. So before we get to the game, let's talk about our trip to Columbia. We were all there from Friday to Sunday. What were your thoughts on the campus and the school and the city?
Um, I know I want to shout out the Dingus family for hosting us at their tailgate. They were a great host. Um, had a blast hanging out with them. Got to meet a lot of new monarchs we've never met before. It was an awesome experience. Yeah, I actually had a great time. Uh, so, I mean, I, I, I can't not talk about this trip without talking about my first ever experience at Buc ee's.
When I saw the sign that Buc ee's was coming, I had this smile on my face that probably only children should have, but it was like, the anticipation was crazy. We, we went in that parking lot was nuts.
It's, I mean, If you haven't been to a Buc ee's, you gotta go, but if you get overly stimulated by tight places with people who have no, uh, situational awareness at some place that you want to steer clear of, but, I mean, beef jerky, brisket, t shirts, uh, beaver nugget, no matter, they sell it if it's made. It was pretty awesome. You got the full experience too because it's in Darlington, South Carolina and the NASCAR race today is in Darlington. So you got like a true experience.
The one I usually go to is in North Texas next to Texas Motor Speedway. So it's similar, similar kind of vibes there. But, uh, Columbia was a pretty fun town. We were staying in the downtown area, a lot of good restaurants, bars to walk through. I think we ended up closing down 10 roof on Friday night. Uh, it's big campus, a lot of old historic buildings. Enjoyed walking back from the shuttle bus through campus to try to find something for for dinner last night.
But overall, pretty good experience. Uh, not sure I want to make that 5. 5 hour drive again, but it was fun. So, their tailgate set up was pretty amazing. Um, Gamecock Park, it's between the stadium and the football facilities, their practice facilities, all grass. Allowing you to park and then behind their space for tense. So, when other cars are coming in, it's not a problem. No tents need to be moved. Um, indoor bathrooms with AC on a hot day were awesome breaks for just that moment.
Um, they had big TV screen set up live music. Um, the vibes were pretty great. Um, so credit to them for the awesome pregame atmosphere. Um, we had access to the Cockaboos club, which came in handy during that lightning delay, we were able to go in there and get some refreshments and talk to some Gamecocks during that break. Um, overall I had a pretty good experience. Um, every Gamecock fan we met for the most part was very cordial, nice. Um, got to rib back forth with some of them and.
Had a good time. And I think we picked up some new new fans. I mean, not this podcast, but Old Dominion football. They saw the guys fighting and converting. You know how Ricky says, you know, you don't have Old Dominion doesn't have to be your favorite football team. We're okay with being your second favorite football team. There's some folks in South Carolina that are going to be keeping an eye. On Old Dominion football going forward?
Yeah. As long as they leave our guys alone in the transfer portal, I'll be, be happy. 'cause I imagine they're eyeing some dudes on the, on the defense after the way they played this week, except for probably the, uh, the guy and the girl that were sitting in front of me and Mike. The, was it right after the half or was it before the pre half? I can't remember The lightning.
But the, uh, it was right after the half when, uh, the specialists were practicing for some reason, for some reason, they didn't put the nets up during those practice sessions at halftime. And this guy got drilled in the face. It was awesome. I mean, Ethan Chang was what, uh, I don't know. It was probably about a 45 yard field goal. And luckily.
I mean, I've got pretty good depth perception with regards to tracking footballs and baseballs, and he struck that and I knew it was coming right right to us. And when it was maybe 25 yards out, I was like, heads up, heads up, heads up. And I was getting louder and louder and faster until finally, like this thing is gonna, I mean, it's right on track. I tried to reach out, you know, in front of the guy's face. But, um, I guess he was in his phone too much and that ball just destroyed him.
Somehow the girl next to him ended up with whiplash. I don't know how that happened, Mike, but, um, yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty awesome. She, she was holding her head for a good, like 15 minutes after it happened. Like she was waiting for a personal injury lawyer to talk to her. And speaking of personal injury lawyers, I have never been to a city with more billboards for personal injury lawyers than I have. In Columbia, they're every billboard. It was overkill.
They have all the good phone numbers too. It's like nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, or the sevens all the way across. Like I didn't realize that was such a, such a problem down there in South Carolina, but apparently it is. So I saw the incident that you're talking about. I was in section 17, lower level behind ODU bench. A lot of the parents, we couldn't really tell what happened. We just saw that one of the ODU kickers had his hands on top of his helmet.
Cause I guess he watched the whole thing unfold. And then we saw the little. Kind of scrum there behind where the net should have been on that. I did not know that it was interesting. Good chain, kicked the ball. Sanchez was just outside the end zone. So he's the kicker that all the. Ethan, I'm going to say Ethan. They're both Ethan's, but Ethan Sanchez is right there and everybody's like looking at him like, why would you do that?
And he, yeah, he had his hands on his head and he's like, you know, like, sorry, like he was, he was trying to be like, really contrite, but he didn't do anything. It wasn't him. But yeah, I don't know why they didn't have the nuts up, but a specialist, they got to warm up, man. So people got to be alert. I was, uh. I enjoyed their pregame, um, with the band. Their band was fantastic.
Um, Sandstorm though, I, the energy just wasn't there yesterday and maybe it was the heat cause it was really, really hot. Or maybe it was because they're playing a G5 and not in Alabama or Georgia, but the energy just didn't feel like it didn't meet what they said it would be. I don't know if you got that same impression. I felt the same way. I think it is opponent.
Like most South Carolina fans are not going to be too amped up to play a school that most of them probably have never heard of, especially when you look at the other games on their schedule, man, it was hot, it was humid. I mean, I was worn down when I finally got to my seat. I was like, I can finally relax. Then I realized I'm staring into the sun for the next two and a half, three hours getting roasted. Um, but they filled the stands up pregame really well.
I mean, I didn't see very many open seats at all. They were, they were there, uh, they were pretty loud for Sandstorm. I think they were louder for the Cockaboos train when their mascot came out of the top of it. That was actually pretty, pretty cool to see there. But, uh, yeah, the, the lightning delay killed the crowd, especially in the student section, they got an excuse to sneak out and go drink. They took it and ran. I think Old Dominion played a part in that. So let's talk about that.
Old Dominion loses 23 to 19. Um, but we're all re evaluating this season after that performance. Initial thoughts, Aaron? Yeah. I mean, when we talked about what we thought this season had in store, I said that I thought we'd win seven games. I'm gonna stick with that just because of how difficult the schedule is. But based upon what we saw in, you know, we were lucky enough to see these guys practice during the season. I can't say that we were super surprised by some of the things that we saw.
But this team Um, this team could be a real force in the Sun Belt. I mean, there's a there is a real chance that this team could win the Sun Belt, you know, conference. Um, anybody who is really down on them after watching that game should, you know, let's not, let's not take too much into it because it is week one. We don't know how good or bad South Carolina is. And we don't know how good or bad we are.
Um, but that defense we're talking about before we started recording, I, man, if they play like that, uh, this season and the offense is able to be improved a little bit, they can do some real damage. I think we all had some questions on what the defense would look like. Would they be able to maintain or take a step forward knowing that you're replacing the entire secondary? Great. Jason Henderson is coming back from injury. We lost Wayne Matthews. We lost some other guys.
Uh, that was an elite defensive performance yesterday. And I don't just mean in, in the stats and in the points allowed and things like that, if you're watching our defense, you know, we're playing an SEC team on the road and they're essentially running a power style option, which a decent power conference is going to be bigger and stronger at every single position and can kind of bully their way down the field. Uh, but our defense stayed with their assignments.
They were aggressive coming up to support the run, but not overaggressive where they were running past guys with the ball, like just really smart, disciplined play on the defensive side of the ball. And I was really happy to see it because there were a couple of plays where they kind of set some traps for Jason Henderson, a few other guys to come rushing in and get blown up on some blocks, but they just stayed with it. They stayed in their assignments. They made plays, made tackles.
I think we only have really one blown coverage the entire game. And thankfully the kid who transferred up to coastal Carolina, then got a little dizzy, looking up for the ball. Cause it's so high, so highly thrown, uh, and he dropped it. So we didn't get hit, but we were not falling for the play action. They were trying to set up off of it. Just. Defensively was great. Uh, offensive side of the ball.
Don't know if it's the same story, but I find myself torn between being really mad that we gave that game away. Like that should have been our first power conference road victory first went over an sec team. We should have won that football game. And then I kind of think of the bigger picture of. We were, had the lead in the fourth quarter on the road against an SEC team. And I didn't think that that would be the case.
So it's like they overperformed, but still managed to rip my heart out of my chest. Uh, that's why we love college football, right? It's it's nuts. Um, so defensively, I was Mario Thompson and Patrick Smith. Young were kind of the two guys that really stood out for me, but I also really enjoyed the substitution patterns we were doing on defense on a hot day.
Yeah. I mean, it looked like a hockey line at some point at some points in the game where just everyone's coming, coming out, coming in, and that type of depth is going to be very valuable as the season moves along. So we'll keep guys fresher longer into the season. And I didn't see a drop off in defensive quality, even when we did make those big line changes of five or six guys going on and off at a time. Like we maintain that same intensity, same discipline, same gap assignments.
Like it was great to see that many dudes getting in and getting tackles. And you can look at the tackle distribution and Patrick Smith Young led the way with nine tackles that I'm boatload of guys with seven, a boatload of guys with four and three. That's what you really want to see from your defense. I mean, Jason Henderson was maybe on the field for 50 percent of snaps, got three tackles and our defense look amazing.
Uh, so that, that is something I'm really, really excited about as well, Mike, because if we have that against teams that aren't SEC size and strength, uh, that's gonna be, uh, just such an advantage for us as we get later in the season. Alright. Now you, you, you mentioned the offense and, uh, some of the disappointment there. Um, I was surprised we didn't see much of Dom Dutton.
Um, as Aaron said, we were lucky enough to go to practice, uh, and watch some scrimmages and Dom was a big part of those practices, so. I don't know. It was kind of strange not seeing him out there. Uh, I didn't see much of Kelby either. Like, it seemed like the exact opposite with the wide receiver group. Uh, we weren't cycling those guys in and out, and it was kind of strange, but Isaiah Page really stepped up and had an amazing game.
Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing as you were talking there, Mike. I mean, from the receiver position, we really so we saw Deontay Vines. We saw Isaiah Page, we saw Myles Alston and then Conroy, the tight end position. We saw a lot of, but other, I mean, other than that, no, until Isaiah went down with the cramps at the very end, when we saw Dom come out, those guys were like warriors out there. I mean, it's a hot game. the South Carolina fans were talking about how hot it was.
I mean, they kept talking about that. It was the hottest day of the year. I can't imagine that that is accurate. It was very hot there and they were talking about that. Then, um, I mean, hats off to to, uh, the training staff for keeping these guys making sure that they were fully hydrated and ready because we, you know, we really didn't have guys going down with with cramps. South Carolina had had cramps a number of times. Uh, but we certainly didn't.
So, uh, it'll be interesting to see going into East Carolina, if we play more receivers, I was surprised. Of the amount of snaps that our guys, those, those four guys took. And I know Dom Dutton got on the field, like you said, Aaron, later on when Isaiah Page went down with that injury, um, he was open on some of those passing plays there in the final plays as well. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, he's one of those guys that with his speed, you just need to get in the ball of space and go.
So I was hoping to see him rotated more. There's definitely some gamesmanship in week one. I think South Carolina had some, and it almost bit him in the ass. Of you don't want to show everything that you've got out there, but you don't have a chance to win the game, get them on the field and try to go down and get it. Uh, the offensive line was where we had a lot of shakeup for our team. We had a lot of new guys plugged in across that line.
Um, some spots I did really well, some spots they didn't. I think South Carolina made some adjustments. Even coming into the game, but even later on with using the speed that they have with their edge rushers to get around the tackles. Uh, Kennard had a big game. I think he, I think he ended up with three or three and a half sacks.
Uh, but he was a monster, uh, early in that game and he was just able to be faster than the tackle to get around the tackle and come back and get into the pocket and go after the quarterback a little bit. Uh, after the touchdown pass to Isaiah Page, where, I mean, he came from the far side of the field, kind of ran to the middle, split their too high safety shell and just got open for a touchdown.
After we did that, I noticed they had a linebacker playing a little bit more in that center field to at least block the vision to be able to throw over the middle because we didn't go back there much. The rest of the day. Um, but O line definitely needs to work out some kinks. There were some false starts. I don't put all the false starts totally on the offensive line because there were some where we were just trying to go too fast in the situation. We shouldn't have gone too fast.
And that was not more apparent than the first drive of the game of first play is about a four yard loss on kind of a dump off pass. We rushed to the line. We're not ready. We go to snap it. We get a false start. I had like three guys move in. And then of course. Player two later, we get the fumble and set South Carolina up for the first touchdown. Now there's one play that stood out to me that was kind of funky with the O line. Um, Sack on Grant early in the game when he's strip sacked.
Our right or our left tackle was pulling on that play on a pass play. I don't think I've ever seen a pulling tackle on a pass play before. I think that goes back to the RPO stuff though, because the final, the strip sack we had later that led to the second South Carolina touchdown. It looked like Santana Saunders was in pass block and then as Grant ran past him, like he was still like, Going to protect the pocket.
And that's the person who reached in and pop the ball out from him to cause it a second fumble. So I think there was definitely some miscues on assignments on the offensive line, which I think you kind of expect with that many new people. Um, he McNally over there on the left. I'm sure he'll happy to be happy to not see Kyle Kennard next week because that dude is just a beast. Like he's, he's awesome. We talked about him last week. He's a monster. Um, and he showed it.
So I think they're, they're going to grow a lot from week one to week two on that offensive line, but we only had a few plays that really just got blown up because of the offensive line. It was less than we saw last year, even later in the season. Yeah. But that pulling one, it just left Kennard wide open to just drill grant and paid off for them. Yeah. We left him as the unblocked guy a couple of times.
And occasionally we would get around them, but there was one play he had where he decided I'm not going to go after the running back or the quarterback. I know where the mesh point is, and I'm just going to disrupt everything. And it ended up, he basically tackled two guys on the same play for a big loss. So they were, they got, they got wise to our kind of inside zone reads and things like that we were trying to do in the running game. All right.
So we did spend a lot of time ahead of this game talking about Lenore Sellers and what he is and what he could be. Um, I think he's got a lot of growing to do to be the guy that everyone in South Carolina wants him to be. He missed some throws, his wide receivers let him down a couple of times. But, um, I, I asked a couple of South Carolina fans, they're in a lightning strike and a halftime, why are they passing the ball? They shouldn't have passed the ball anytime after that lightning delay.
Cause their running game was spectacular against us. They were doing a lot in power after that lightning delay. Uh, but man, not exactly Cam Newton 2. 0. Um, maybe he'll get there one day, but even in the run game, I mean, he was making pitches a little bit too early towards their sideline, making some incorrect reads. Uh, and then we did a great job defensively of bringing some delayed blitzes on him in those passing downs to get those sacks.
Uh, we had him just kind of like his, his shoelaces were tied together in the backfield. Sometimes he made a couple of plays. I mean, he definitely has some flashes. But I think going away from that game, we feel a little better about our team, but South Carolina feels a whole lot worse about where they stand, knowing that if we can only score two touchdowns against ODU and drive starting inside the 10, what's going to happen when we go play the rest of this SEC schedule?
Because I promise you, it's not going to get easier for them. Absolutely. You're not wrong there. Every person we talked to after the game in the tailgate lot was not feeling good. It was kind of, I don't know. I've never had that feeling after a loss before where I'm talking to them and they're just, they feel worse than I do. I mean, I know how we feel. We, it sucks to lose.
Especially when you have that opportunity, we missed a huge opportunity to make a statement and win a game, but, uh, they felt worse than I did. I know that. Yeah, I mean, that, that's true. Um, but we, in order to move forward in this season, we've got to avoid those critical plays. There's a handful of plays in this game that. If those plays don't happen, this game very well could be significantly different.
We had, or you're not going to beat an SC team, let alone teams in the Sunbelt losing the turnover battle, let alone turning the ball over four times. Yeah. Four times. So, but if we, if we don't do that, if we just secure those sorts of things, this team has a chance to be very, very dangerous, but we have to, we've got to make those corrections immediately because. We're not going to get away with it with East Carolina last year. It wasn't necessarily the turnovers that killed us either.
It was more of just not executing the plays and being able to move the ball down the field on offense. Like I feel like we showed flashes of the offense coming together in certain parts, but the turnovers killed you. I mean, they scored South Carolina scored two touchdowns yesterday, both on drives that started inside the 10. You can't really expect your defense to hold in those kinds of situations. They did it every other time.
The bend, but don't break was really effective against the offense at South Carolina was running the man. And I think each one of those turnovers was set up at some point by a penalty, whether it was on the punt return or a false start, it just kept backing us up into that end zone and the student section in the early part of the game.
Was packed and loud and rowdy lightning delay cleared out at least half of it if not more So it wasn't like you were backed up against a full throat student section there either where you've got a lot of communication problems So I I don't know it was it was tough to watch those things unfold It was worse when I went back and watched it again a little bit last night and today But there are things you can clean up like ball security.
I mean, I, I think some of these guys should be walking around with footballs taped to their arms all week in the practice facility, just to get the point across. All right. So do you have any closing thoughts on this game? I thought Myles Alston played a really good game at wide receiver. Forgot how many catches he ended up with, what his stats were. His parents are also really excited. They were a couple rows up from me.
We saw a lot of glimpses from guys on the offensive side, even though it wasn't super effective. Bryce Duke had some great runs. Myles Alston, again, was great. Vines got involved a little bit, but they were really honing in on him, trying to keep him from getting the ball at all. So there's definitely some flashes of stuff on the offensive side that I like to see. Um, special teams.
I don't know what we need to do to fix our field goal protection and the operation of the snap to the hold to the kick. Because I feel like the snap is slow. It felt slow on Ponce. And the protection wasn't great. You can be bad at one of those, but you can't be bad at both at the same time. We were lucky. We didn't have two punts block. We were lucky.
It was only one extra point that has got to be cleaned up from week one to week two, or we're never going to get the game winning 50 yard field goal because it's going to be blocked and going the other way. And then I'm going to be screwed because that's the prediction I make every single week. So that has got to get fixed. That blocked, that blocked extra point changed what that last drive had to be. going for field goals, a lot more realistic than having to go for a game winning touchdown.
Um, and it changes your whole game plan. So yeah, you got to clean that up. Um, you mentioned a couple of offensive players that impressed you. I want to add Pat Conroy to that. He is a tough, hard nosed tight end. Um, he extended a drive by just fighting through two ball, uh, tacklers. Um, that play alone was like, all right, that's a dude. Yeah. I, we didn't even talk about the fact that Jalen Butler was injured and out for this game. So if you have Jalen Butler, who is.
So good in run blocking. Like we obviously missed that a little bit on Saturday, uh, but you have him and Conroy available to you. I mean, that's. That's some tight end depth that we haven't had in a long time at ODU, if, if, uh, if at all. Um, so I'm, I'm excited about that. I did think he played really, really well. He may not be the blocker that Jalen Butler is, but he might be a slightly better receiver, at least from what we've seen.
And while we're on the subject of, uh, injuries, uh, clearly Devon Roche gets hurt early in the game. We don't see him come back. Um, hopefully that's nothing serious and we can see him suit up against ECU. Santana Saunders missed a lot of this game, was substituted by DeBose, uh, who played well in his absence, but he came back in the game, so that was great to see.
Um, Paige went down late in the game, and obviously Jason was dealing with, uh, His injury happy that he came back in as well, right? He came back in late. Oh, yeah, he came in multiple. It was hard to tell if if it was if he was cramping or if it was, you know, Hamstring or what it was, but I mean there were multiple times he was he was in the game He played the entire game.
He just was out getting worked on at times hard to tell They did a pretty good job of managing his snap count Um, I mean he's what nine and a half months coming off of a pretty serious knee injury You And you can kind of tell that he had an injured leg and he hasn't been able to work that leg out as much as the other ones. It almost looked like sometime he was dragging it a little bit, kind of just half a step behind.
But those are all things that he's going to get better at as the season goes, as he fully recovers. Um, but for the defense to still do what they did, knowing that he was limited in his snap count, she bodes well for you going forward on that defensive side of the ball. We have some dudes at linebacker. And before we, before we, before we end this one, the one guy that we didn't mention.
Was Angelo Rankin Jr. He came up and he made a real good hit forcing the fumble really was almost a very pivotal point in the game. Pivotal play in the game. We did not end up scoring. Unfortunately, it was another one of those, uh, not good turnovers that, that we had, I mean, I hate to keep going back to it, but I think before we put an exclamation point on this game is they scored 14 points off of fumbles and very bad areas of the field. And then we gave up.
Potential seven points with a bad turnover in the end zone. I mean, that's, that is all of South Carolina's points. And yeah, that, so on that player, I remember seeing Isaiah page, uh, kind of runs out of bounds, allowing his guy to drop into zone and grant through it, right, to, um, yeah, I think it was already Conroy on like a corner route. And I mean, it was, it was telegraphed. You could tell by the eyes where that was going the whole way.
And then, yeah, that corner cheated back and was right there to pick it. Uh, I want to talk about Isaiah pages touchdown run because he broke some ankles. I think he's wanted for assault somewhere in Columbia. That was nasty. So tiptoe that sideline, put some dancers on, keep his feet inbounds and then go to the pylon. I mean, that was an exceptional run after the catch for Isaiah Page.
Uh, so I hope that it was just cramps at the end of the game and he's good to go because that was like the only big shot we had and we needed it too because we just fumbled giving up the touchdown. We come back, punch him right in the mouth and then it was tight from there on. So kudos Isaiah Page on just an incredible run to get the end zone. Uh, I think that also had a big part in quieting that stadium because the vibes just changed immediately. on that play.
Um, I guess I keep going back to a little Colbert deserve some credit. He played fantastic. Um, redshirt freshman just coming in and doing a great job at linebacker. Um, Koa, obviously we're a big fan to Koa. He plays well. I mean, he just does his job. Um, there's so many guys that had good games yesterday that I want to give credit to, but we don't have the time to just go through the entire defense. So shout out to this defense. That was fun to watch.
I think you said it when we say this is quite possibly the best defensive effort that we've seen as Monarch football fans. If not, it's, I mean, it's right up there. If it's, if it's not, yeah, it's top five easily for me. I know, I think it was maybe our best pass defense game that I've ever seen in ODU. Um that was take away everything in coverage. It was great. Yeah. I can't think of a more dominant game against the past that we've ever had in our program's history.
Jahron Manning is a beast in the secondary. He is a beast. They stayed away from him later in that game. He's a monster. J man. Number five, shameless plug. If you go to ODU monarchist. com, we have a t shirt available. J man five, everything after costs at all goes to support Jahron Manning. So get your T t shirt. All all right. So ECU comes to Ballard for our first. Our home opening weekend, six o'clock, it'll be on ESPN plus. Opening line. This was a shocker to me.
I guess Vegas recalibrated, they saw what we did and they're like, um, they're favored by three points, uh, on the opening line. I'm excited for this one. We've had so many opportunities to finally win a game against them that we kind of can't finish. And I'm hoping this is the one that we finally beat ECU in. Um, so Gary, what are your thoughts on this ECU program?
Well, I will say that I grabbed that ODU minus three while I was still in North Carolina, just took all the winnings from ODU plus 21 and a half that I got on the way down to the South Carolina game. Just keep rolling that over. Hope it eventually covers that over four and a half wind total I have for ODU. It's fairly sizable. Um, no, ECU, they have, they really hit the, the transfer portal hard. Spent a lot of NIL money. They had Norfolk State for their opener.
Uh, cruised did victory there on the scoreboard. Uh, if you look a little deeper though, they did have six turnovers, uh, through three interceptions, had three fumbles. Uh, they're, they're quarterbacks. Jake Garcia. Um, they're running kind of a new up tempo style of offense, which if you look at the time of possession, that game makes sense. They actually lost the time of possession battle 36 minutes, like 23 minutes.
Uh, so it's going to be interesting to see which, uh, offense can stay on the field longer on Saturday because it seems like both are just kind of go, go, go. Uh, but Jake Garcia, Um, was it Michigan two years at Miami, uh, another year at Mizzou, but he did throw three interceptions, but he did a lot of really good things in that game as well. Uh, they've got Winston Wright, who's an FSU wide receiver that's come in this year. He also returns their kicks. He is pretty fast.
He has some pretty big returns against Norfolk State. Case Kelly, they're a big tight end from Oregon. He caught a touchdown pass against Norfolk State. Then Anthony Smith transferred in from NC State. He might be the fastest person I've seen on film in quite some time. I think he had five catches for 86 yards and a touchdown. London Montgomery, they're starting running back, came in from Penn State. 14 carries for like 69 yards in their opener.
They just, they have power conference talent up and down. That's joined this team. It's probably going to take them a couple of weeks to fully gel. Uh, but they were able to survive six turnovers and still win at a very, very comfortable margin where the game was never in doubt against Norfolk state. So I think the, the battle of, of offenses here and offenses that are coming off of high turnover games is going to be a lot of fun to watch.
Like, do we go more conservative and try to limit turnovers? Do we just. pedals of the metal up tempo. I think both offensive coordinators are asking that, asking themselves that question right now, but that should provide for a very entertaining game. Uh, their offense with all that power talent going up against our defense, not having to block sec defensive lineman, uh, should be a fun one on Saturday. Yeah. You covered most of it, Gary.
A couple of things that I want to point out that that I saw is they only had two sacks against Norfolk State. So I can't imagine that's uh, being extra vanilla and saying I don't want to sack Norfolk State. So perhaps grant us a little bit more time this week. Um, I don't know, maybe it's an anomaly and maybe they just, maybe, maybe Norfolk State's line is better than, better than uh, you know, that I'm giving them credit for.
Um, another thing is I really, How did Norfolk State have the ball for 36 minutes and their 3rd down conversion rate was 1 of 18? How do you have the ball that long when you convert 1 of 18 opportunities to 1 of 2 4th downs? I mean, so obviously we have to be better on 3rd down conversions than Norfolk State was. Because if they had converted on 3rd downs, I mean, who knows? The game could have looked a little bit different.
They got blown out, so not that much different, but, um, I think there's a lot of opportunity this game for us. I think there were a couple of Norfolk State drives extended by penalties because I think East Carolina had a few penalties as well. So I think that helped them, but they had 7 for 48. So I mean, it's not, uh, I think it was 7, 7 for 48 yards. So not not, uh. Anything too egregious.
I mean, yeah, it certainly seems like there's opportunities for for offense to be able to offense and defense to, uh, take control of this game. Yeah, and some interesting notes coming out of the East Carolina game that kind of shocked me a little bit. That's the 1st time East Carolina has won their season opener since 2016. I just thought for sure that they had, you know, had some FCS schools or something, and they just blew them out. Like they did this past Saturday.
Um, they also had 17 tackles for a loss, which is the most they've had in a single game since they played us back in 2018. Uh, so maybe they didn't get the sacks, but they definitely got some tackles for a loss there. So they're going to be ball hawking. I also just with the way the game went where they're absolutely blue Norfolk stayed out.
They did not put their best stuff on, on film Saturday, so you're not going to learn a whole lot other than some, some base coverages and who's their, who their backups are, uh, from that film. Um, I, I think we may have emptied the tank a little bit, but I have no doubt that there are packages that did not make their way to the field on Saturday, just given the game conditions. I, I feel, I, we did not even come close to emptying the clip on Saturday.
Uh, there are some sets we've seen in scrimmages that haven't been run yet. I mean, Devin Roche, the opening kickoff gets injured, gets his ankle twisted up, shoe comes off. We don't see him again. And we know that there are packages in place designed specifically for him and his explosiveness. Talk about Dom Dutton. I think we we didn't hold back in a way that hurt us, but we definitely held back in a way that would give us an advantage later on.
And I think East Carolina is a game you need to win pretty desperately if you're looking at six, seven wins as your win total. So sorry, we had to take a brief delay there. Cause my Grubhub order got stolen by the driver. Uh, anyways, ECU, where do we, where are we at on this one? I think it's a good a time as any to talk about what's going to happen on Friday before the East Carolina game and set up some, some stuff for Saturday.
Cause you kind of covered what East Carolina is bringing to the table on Saturday. Before you want to do that, hold on the pep rally on Friday. Um, there's gonna be a pep rally on Friday at afterglow starting at six o'clock. Um, when we had this idea. And we pitched it to the Collective and Afterglow. Our idea was because there's not a central meeting spot for fans when they're coming out of town.
There isn't a place for ODU fans to congregate and hang the night before a game, which really makes the ODU football game weekend just a one day thing on Saturdays. And that's not how it should be. It should be an all weekend event. And this is our first chance to create that. And, uh, I know they had the watch party there on Saturday for the South Carolina game. Uh, David was there for us and, uh, he said it was packed. It's one of the busiest times he's ever seen there.
So great crowd that came out on Saturday. So if you came out Saturday to watch the game there, thank you. Uh, but we'd love to see you there on Friday. I know I talked to the Barlev family a little bit. In the stands after the game. I think they're bringing a crew of nine or 10 to come watch Zach play. So y'all are listening to this. It's good to meet you and also would love to see you out at Afterglow Friday night if you guys are gonna be in town by then.
Absolutely. Uh, I understand there were more than 200 people at the watch party at Afterglow on Saturday. That's, that is pretty awesome. Would love to rival those numbers for the. pregame festivities friday night. Like Mike was saying, this is something that our group has been talking about for a while. So you're coming in from out of town. It's a great opportunity to get together with some fellow Monarchs and just kind of have a good time and get pumped up for the game.
Um, you know, the following, uh, following day. So it's right down the street, just plug in afterglow brewing. It's there. Uh, gonna have what music, Mike? Uh, JP Lewis will be performing. He's an ODU grad actually. Um, and then Moon Tide. Will be the food truck on site. If you don't like moon tides offerings, there is an awesome taco place next door called sanctuary taco. So you have a couple of options there. Uh, my favorite thing about afterglow is how big and communal it can be outside.
They have a great outdoor space. So hopefully the weather cooperates, but they also have a good indoor space. So just come hang and meet some fellow Monarchs. And, uh, have a great night. Just to let folks know who haven't been there yet, Afterglow has been a phenomenal partner. with the monarchist with the pride of ODU collective. That's where we hosted. That's where we host the main event. We had the men's basketball team and event with the women's basketball team.
This watch party, they are super easy to work with. It's a great environment. They're supporting us. Please come out and have a good time and support them. This is a symbiotic relationship. I, we're going to have all kinds of awesome stuff for the fans in the future. So let's support this place. Yeah. And, uh, on Saturday they unveiled a new, uh, seltzer drink called the big blue slushy. It's a blue slushy, but it's got raspberry and alcohol in it.
We haven't tasted it yet cause we were in Columbia, but I'm excited to try it. And, um, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say this yet, but. Aaron, you're shaking your head. Not supposed to say it. I'm trying to do the dramatic thing. Like don't do it, Mike. Now. I don't know if we're supposed to say it yet either, but you're like, I have to don't do it, Mike. Yeah. Well, they are making a beer in, uh, working with the collective on a beer that will benefit the collective.
Uh, our logo will be on the cam, which we're very excited about. We're happy they included us, but, uh, all proceeds of that beer sale will, will go to the collective. And. If you're a member of the collective, you get 10 percent off when you come to these events. So hard to beat that. Hope to see you guys out there on Friday. All right. I think that's sets us up well, Gary. Well, I know that there'll be a lot of East Carolina fans traveling.
They typically show up in pretty good number in Norfolk. I know some are local to the area. Definitely don't come to Africa on Friday. If you're an East Carolina fan, um, definitely don't come there and buy a bunch of beers and sell them out of kegs. I think you all should try this little place called headlights. Really good food, nice atmosphere. So enjoy your time at headlights on Friday. I believe that's the official East Carolina Friday pep rally. So go there.
Um, support college educations and have a great time. Eric. You're right. The headlights thing gets you off center like a deer in the headlight. It's a, um, that's a great suggestion. That's good, good travel, uh, advice. Gary just doing my part to help out the East Carolina fans, like I help pump up the South Carolina fans. Alright, so. Other things we have for this week. David's gonna have his regular content out, his game recap, his game preview and prediction.
Um, we also have our fan Q& A coming out. This week should be up Wednesday. Um, with one of our fantastic friends at ECU. Um, I'm excited for just to get back into Ballard and have it hopefully be loud. And full. I'm hoping so as well. I'm hoping to see a good crowd, a big student section, uh, getting into the game. Uh, just so much stuff going on. I guess this is the, the fun time of year where all the fall sports are kicking.
Uh, excited to get back to Norfolk, but, uh, field hockey's been on a roll lately. Uh, women's soccer, waiting for them to finally get going against LSU tonight, but they've been off to a good start. Men's soccer as well. So just a lot of good stuff going around campus. So. Volleyball won a couple of matches this weekend too. They did. They've, they've are in pretty good shape this year. They lost a really close one to UVA.
I think yesterday, uh, CB Wilkins was there on site for us getting some really good photo content. Uh, but a lot of good stuff. So go to odmonarchist. com keep you in the loop on everything that's going on around for ODU sports. All right. Are we ready to make our predictions for this one? Oh yeah. All right. So I think Aaron had to go first last time. So I'm going to let Aaron go last to let the suspense drive for what he's going to pick. Yeah. Uh, you, you really do have no idea. I appreciate.
I'm like my wife here. I could use an extra couple minutes to look at the menu and figure out what I'm going to order. So I do appreciate going through. All right. So I'm gonna let you lead us off Gary. The biggest change you see in teams is from week one to week two. So if the team really overperformed last week, they're likely coming down a peg. If they underperform, they're likely coming up. So I think our defense will be up against a little bit better offense, in my opinion.
Um, like their offensive line may not be as big or as strong, but I think they have a little bit more playmakers, a quarterback that is least proven that he can throw the ball downfield. Uh, so I think this one's going to be much more of a fun offensive shootout. Uh, I love the over in this game. I think this is going to be somewhere like first team to 40 is going to win it. Um, but I like ODU to take this one. By one possession, because we don't like any games that go over one possession.
So give me something like the 42 to 35 range. I think that's where we're going to be looking at on Saturday. A lot of, a lot of offensive fireworks that will be, uh, quite the opposite of what we saw on Saturday, if that becomes true, um, I do feel like our offense is going to be in a much better position against this ECU front seven. I'm not sure we'll, uh, we'll play a front seven as talented as USC the rest of the year. Um, they were big and fast and they look like an SEC front seven.
Um, I think this, our offense, we're going to see the one that me and Aaron have kind of been building up this, uh, preseason. We're going to see what it really looked like, um, for us on Saturday. I'm taking us to easily cover, um, 34, 24. Sounds like a good number to me. I'm hopeful that the defense just continues that play though. I know it's going to be tougher for them this week, but. They were so good on Saturday, and I just want more of it.
All right, Aaron, you guys are way smarter than me when it comes to this stuff. And I'm not smart enough to pick a score. But what I am smart enough to pick a winner. Appreciate the extra minute or two there. I have chosen a winner after. Deep thought and, um, we're going to win. We're going to win by three points. Sanchez from 50 wins. First time we beat East Carolina and it's going to be awesome. I don't care whose prediction is right. I just hope one of them are right.
Um, I, if anyone on the team is listening, we'll gladly take a gigantic blowout win too, like, you know, the ticker after 11, one scores last year and starting off this season, like, You want to win by four or five, six touchdowns. You're not going to disappoint us. I promise. So feel free. That's what we're rooting for and hoping for every game that we attend and watch. Um, I think that about does it for this show. Anyone want to close this out? I'll just say go Monarchs beat East Carolina.
Go Monarchs. Go Monarchs.