By Harry Minium
Old Dominion football coach Bobby Wilder calls his squad “the best 1-5 team in America,” and for the most part, he’s probably right.
Among the seven Football Bowl Subdivision schools with 1-5 records, USA Today only rates Vanderbilt from the SEC and UCLA from the Pac-12 slightly higher than ODU. The Monarchs are well ahead of Georgia Tech, UConn, South Alabama and Rutgers.
That’s in part because ODU has played a tough schedule, and could have won road games against Virginia, Virginia Tech and Marshall. All three were close in the fourth quarter, but the Monarchs generally did themselves in with mistakes.
But being the best 1-5 team in any league “is not what you want to be,” Wilder said as his weekly press conference. “We want to be 5-1, but your record says who you are.”
Although ODU’s offense showed improvement last weekend in a 31-17 loss at Marshall, the team’s offensive woes haven’t yet been fixed.
On the positive side, backup quarterback Messiah deWeaver came off the bench and gave ODU’s offense a shot of adrenaline, completing 8 of 14 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown. His best pass was a 44-yarder to Aaron Moore for ODU’s only touchdown. And by throwing the ball even when receivers were covered, he gave them a chance, and they caught some tough ones, including two caught by Darius Savedge.
Quarterback Messiah deWeaver gave ODU some spark off the bench at Marshall.
ODU's special teams were special at Marshall, with punter Bailey Cate pinning the Herd deep in their own territory. Blake Watson returned three kickoffs for 166 yards, and could be the guy who gives the Monarch offense another spark. Getting Watson in the best place to get the the ball against UAB, Wilder said, is one of his top goals in practice this week.
Meawhile, ODU's young wide receivers were invigorated by having the opportunity to catch more passes. "They are young and hungry and just want to work," wide receivers coach John Allen said.
On the negative side, two of ODU’s scores were set up by long kickoff returns from Watson and the Monarchs had just 206 offensive yards against Marshall. ODU had only one sustained drive.
Marshall had eight sacks, the most the Herd had in nearly two decades, and ODU again could not get its running game going. ODU ranks last among FBS teams in total offense.
ODU’s defense, which has been rock-solid this season, finally showed a few cracks. Marshall had 444 offensive yards, with 77 coming on a 6-minute fourth-quarter drive that sealed the victory for the Herd.
Regardless, ODU’s D is ranked 35th nationally in total defense, and remains team’s biggest strength.
ODU has little time to turn things around, and next up is a road trip to Birmingham’s legendary Legion Field, where the Monarchs will meet UAB on Saturday for the first time. The schools have never met in football even though ODU has been playing a full Conference USA schedule since 2014.
That’s in large part because of UAB's two-year hiatus from football. The Blazers will play in Norfolk for the first time next season.
ODU is a 15-point underdog and with good reason.
UAB is the defending Conference USA champion and the Blazers have won 16 of their last 20 games. In fact since re-instituting its football program in 2017, the Blazers haven’t lost at home. They’ve won 15 games in a row, and so far this year, have averaged 30,207 fans per game.
And while 32,000 could get lost in a stadium that seats more than 71,000, UAB fans adore their team and make a ton of noise.
No wonder Wilder says if the Monarchs win, this is the kind of game that could turn the season around.
ODU football coach Bobby Wilder says he and his players believe they can turn this season around.
Wilder says it’s not too late for the Monarchs to salvage this season and for examples, told his players on Sunday about ODU’s 2015 and 2017 teams, which got off to bad starts, but then rallied.
Neither went to a bowl, but the 2015 team got close. After a 3-5 start that included a 49-0 drubbing by Appalachian State at Foreman Field, ODU beat UTSA and UTEP (and at the time, both teams were pretty good) and needed to win just one of its two final games to go to a bowl.
But quarterback David Washington went down in a 56-31 loss at Southern Miss, and although Shuler Bentley played well in his absence, the Monarchs lost a 33-31 heartbreaker to Florida Atlantic.
A year later, the Monarchs went 10-3 and won the Bahamas Bowl.
In 2017, the Monarchs were 2-6 after losing six in a row when they finally caught fire and dispatched Charlotte, FIU and Rice in succession. Needing one more victory for a bowl bid, they lost at Middle Tennessee, 41-10.
Wilder said his team’s confidence “is shook a bit. But it’s more frustration than any sort of loss of hope.
“It’s mostly the frustration of not finishing the fourth quarter. One big play from the offense or defense or special teams and we might have won those games. And our kids know that.”
Wilder said he knows his players are looking to him for reassurance.
“I always stay consistent in our approach, whether we’re winning or losing,” he said. “I’m being positive but at the same time, demanding at practice.
Wide receiver Eric Kumah is injured and there's a possibility that he might redshirt.
“We play hard and we play with passion. On that first kickoff Blake Watson returned I thought we were going to get a penalty because our guys were trying to run onto the field. You can keep that with a young team as long as they see that light at the end of the tunnel.”
ODU is improving, he said, but so far, not fast enough. He said he's pressing coaches and players to try to improve more quickly.
This team is more talented than the Monarchs were in 2015, he said.
In 2015, he said, “we just held together, just kept getting better and then we got on a run. We needed something positive to happen for us and that’s what this team needs.
“That’s what I truly believe will happen with this team. That’s what gives me the confidence that we’re going to get this turned around.”
NOTES: Wide receiver Eric Kumah, a transfer from Virginia Tech, may not be ready to play for the fourth game in a row. He has a knee injury that hasn’t healed. Wilder said once Kumah is ready to play, he’ll certainly play in one game, his fourth of the season. After that, Wilder said, “he could finish the season playing him or we have the option of redshirting him.” Kumah did not redshirt at Virginia Tech. Even when he’s played injured, he has been ODU’s best offensive threat. . . . Wilder said he hasn’t made a decision on who will start at quarterback against UAB, but deWeaver has the edge now that he’s practicing with ODU’s first team. Stone Smartt will also get a lot of playing time. “We need to develop both quarterbacks, because we’re going to need both of them,” Wilder said. . . . While a 20-3 loss to WKU stung a few weeks ago, perhaps the Hilltoppers are better than we thought. WKU upset Army at home, 17-8, Saturday night, and leads the East Division at 4-2 overall, 3-0 in C-USA.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu