By Harry Minium
When Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig began his search last week for a new football coach, it was crystal clear what the Monarchs needed.
During a disastrous 2019 season, in which ODU lost its last 11 games, the Monarchs were ranked 128th among the 130 FBS schools in total offense and 127thin scoring.
So Selig, along with President John R. Broderick and senior associate athletic director Bruce Stewart, sought out an offensive innovator and a proven leader, someone who has a sterling reputation for obeying the rules, scoring points and who has produced under pressure at a Power 5 program.
They got all of that and more in Ricky Rahne, who will be introduced as ODU's second head football coach Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Priority Automotive Club at S.B. Ballard Stadium. The event is open to the public.
Rahne (last name pronounced Ronnie) comes to ODU from Penn State, where he was offensive coordinator the last two seasons and prior to that, coached PSU's quarterbacks and tight ends.
It speaks well for ODU's program that the Monarchs landed a coordinator from a Power 5 school to replace Bobby Wilder. And Penn State isn't just any school – it has an elite program that often competes for national championships.
Penn State's fan base, fueled by 700,000 living alums, rivals any in the nation when it comes to rooting passionately for their team. Penn State fans are, in a word, nuts about their Nittany Lions.
Rahne has coached in that pressure cooker for six years, so he will be ready for anything thrown at him while at ODU.
Rahne is just 39 years old, with boyish looks and a reputation for putting his family – wife, Jennifer, and sons Ryder and Jake – first before everything.
Rahne has a blue-collar background – his dad was a firefighter and his mom a medical technician. Although he runs the offense for one of the nation's great programs, his rep among coaches is that he doesn't have a big-time ego.
Rahne could have flown back to Penn State from Norfolk from his interview this weekend. But driving is cheaper and since it was all on ODU's dime, he drove.
He drove back to Norfolk Tuesday morning with his family.
"He's not that silver spoon guy where you have to fly him everywhere," Selig said.
And he wanted the ODU job. Badly. He made that clear in the on-campus interview and later, when he was offered the job.
He was driving to New York on a recruiting trip when Stewart and Selig called with the job offer. He told them he was turning around right then.
"He said he wanted to get back as quickly as he could to get to work," Selig said.
"The great thing is that we weren't in the position of having to persuade someone to take the job. That often doesn't work out for you. All of our finalists, they wanted this job. Especially Ricky."
Rahne mapped out his strategy during his interview for how to quickly turn ODU back into a winning program, one that will go to bowl games regularly and will often compete for the Conference USA title.
"He's got a great plan," Stewart said.
Rahne has been a dogged recruiter at Penn State who outworks other schools, witness his recruiting of quarterback Trace McSorley out of Northern Virginia.
Rahne persuaded him to commit to Vanderbilt, then eventually sign with Penn State when he joined the PSU staff. McSorley became the Nittany Lions' all-time passing leader before being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.
Penn State's previous all-time passing record was held by Christian Hackenberg, who was also coached by Rahne.
In spite of losing McSorley, Penn State finished 10-2 this season, beating Iowa and Michigan and playing Ohio State to a close game in Columbus with their backup quarterback. The Nittany Lions were 22nd nationally in scoring offense.
Monarch football director of sports performance Dwight Galt IV, who came to ODU from Penn State, says Rahne is perfect for ODU.
"He's a great coach who is young, hungry, very smart, is a hard worker, disciplined and organized," Galt said.
"We talked today and he's excited and ready to get to work. He can't wait to meet the players and get a chance to build a relationship with them. He's always been a players' coach. His phone has blowing up (Monday) from so many players he coached.
"I always thought he would be a great head coach. I'm excited to work for him, excited to see him here at Old Dominion."
When Stewart met with the team on Monday and announced that Galt was staying, players erupted into cheers and mobbed Galt. Rahne is scheduled to meet with the team on Wednesday.
ODU already won a big recruiting battle before Rahne was announced as head coach. Although several Monarchs, who weren't starters, have entered the transfer portal, freshman quarterback Hayden Wolff says coach Ron Whitcomb and others persuaded him to stay at ODU.
Monday night, he told me he is impressed with Rahne's chops.
Wolff was a 3-star recruit from Venice, Fla., who turned down Kentucky to come to ODU. Wolff gave ODU's offense some life when he played in three of the last four games. He returns next season with four years of eligibility.
"I'm staying and I'm going to work as hard as I can and do whatever I need to do to help this team succeed next season," Wolff said, adding that he knows he will have to compete for a starting job next season.
Rahne hails from Morrison, Colorado, where he was a star quarterback at Bear Creek High School. He enrolled at Cornell, a prestigious Ivy League school, and set school records, that have since been broke, for all-time passing yards, completions, touchdown passes and total offense.
He met Jennifer, a volleyball player, while at Cornell and they've been together ever since.
After graduation, he worked for a couple of years, but quickly discovered that he missed football. "I was miserable without it," he told the Athletic last summer. "I just realized (coaching) is what I wanted to do the rest of my life."
Jennifer, then his girlfriend, helped him write letters to hundreds of schools seeking out a job.
Tom Gilmore hired him to coach the defensive line at Holy Cross in 2004. He returned to Cornell for a year to coach running backs and then went to Kansas State in 2006 as a graduate assistant.
He quickly worked his way up the coaching ladder. He was a full-time coach at Kansas State for the next four years and it was at K-State where he met James Franklin, who would become a mentor and close friend.
Bill Snyder, coach at Kansas State at the time, says Rahne will succeed at ODU.
"I think first and foremost he's a quality caring individual. He's a young man of great values that's truly special," he said.
"He's someone that I think everybody that comes in contact with him, spends time with him feels an openness and a closeness to him and recognizes the type of valued young man that he is. I think he understands the game of football extremely well and I think the fact that most of his experience is on the offensive side and that has allowed him to have a greater understanding of the defensive side of the ball as well."
When Franklin was hired as Vanderbilt's head coach in 2011, Rahne went with him. And his star has risen ever since.
ESPN commentator Jordan Rodgers played quarterback for Rahne at Vanderbilt and raves about his ability to connect with players.
"He was really the first coach I had who could speak the language that I understood, because he was speaking like he was in my shoes," he said. "I love him and his coaching style. I grew the most in my entire career from working with Ricky.
"He's not just my favorite coach, period, but also one of the best guys I've ever worked with."
Rahne was under fire earlier this year following a 31-26 upset loss at Minnesota because his offense didn't score more points. Truth be told, any offensive coordinator at a big-time school is always under fire from second guessers.
"Fan is short for fanatic and Penn State has a huge fan base," Galt said. "But they've been rolling under Ricky. He got great players and coached them well.
"When you watch their games, you'll see the best player has the football in his hands during crunch time. They play mistake-free football for the most part."
And as for the Minnesota, Galt said: "They had 500 (actually 518) yards of offense. What the hell do you expect a guy to do?"
Rahne says he won't duck the difficult questions and when he makes a mistake, will acknowledge it.
"I'm old school," he said last summer. "Everyone wants to take responsibility for the wins.
"The good teams have a lot of guys who take responsibility for the losses, too. It means learning from it, accepting responsibility and going from there."
And well as taking care of family.
He bought a house at State College, Pa., 5 minutes from work so he could be with his wife and sons as much as possible.
"I think it's important that my two boys know that their mother is the most important thing in my life," he said.
Classy.
He knows ODU pretty well, since Franklin has been sending coaches to Monarch summer camps the last five seasons. Rahne has been here for every camp. Selig and Stewart also took him on a tour of S.B. Ballard Stadium and the L.R. Hill Complex last weekend.
He knows the area, knows ODU facilities and I presume knows there's a big upside with this program. There is so much to offer potential recruits here.
ODU has a new, 22,000-seat stadium, upgraded football training facilities, outstanding academics and a student body that's perhaps the most diverse in the country.
ODU is also located in the 757, one of the most fertile recruiting areas in the nation, where the Monarchs had little success in recent years.
Franklin recruited the 757 with passion, and so will Rahne.
Rahne is already on the job. He is hosting a dozen or so recruits this weekend. And as he was driving to Norfolk today, he called more than 20 ODU donors to introduce himself.
This is a guy eager to win.
ODU is the biggest game in town in an area with nearly 1.8 million people, and has a large fan base starving for a winning program with an offense that can score. Virginia Beach is nearby and downtown Norfolk is a short drive from ODU.
And ODU has become a big deal to at least one former Penn State star, Mike Gesicki, who was among dozens of Rahne's former players who paid tribute to Rahne on Twitter.
"Old Dominion just got the smartest, most determined, cool, calm, collective coach in the entire country. So happy for him, wouldn't be where I am today without @RickyRahne and now I am officially a Monarch fan. Get ready to WIN NOW!"
Rahne arrived in Norfolk Tuesday afternoon and I had a chance to meet with him briefly when he came on campus.
Prior to coming on campus, when he and his family checked into The Main Hilton Hotel in downtown Norfolk, he found their suite bursting with blue.
Ellen Selig, Wood's wife, and associate athletic director Tina Price shopped at the ODU Bookstore and decorated the room. There were ODU t-shirts, hats and sweatshirts, including some sized for his wife and two boys, as well as banners, balloons and a ton of snacks.
Ellen Selig remembers how ODU decorated a hotel room when her husband was named athletic director and wanted to return the favor.
Rahne made a surprise appearance at the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation executive committee meeting at the Priority Automotive Club and thanked ODU for how well he's been treated so far.
"Everyone here has been so good to us," he said. He was accorded a standing ovation.
Then followed photos at the stadium with his family. Afterwards, his boys do what boys do and ran on the field while Jennifer refereed.
Rahne kept looking up at the seats. It's not Beaver Stadium, which seats more than 100,000 people. But he said: "This is a great stadium."
He and his family were impressed when they went into a stadium suite, where Rahne met with senior associate athletic director Mike Hermann and Eric Bohannon, assistant athletic director for communications.
His boys oohed and aahed about the view and plush suites. As his family left, Rahne walked around the corner and said, "I love you," to his wife.
He then went over the schedule for Wednesday's press conference and for other promotions ODU would like him to do. He agreed to every request Mike made of him. He kept saying, "I'll do anything you want me to do, anything I can do to help."
As he was going over events later this week, he asked about high schools close by. "I want to get to know the coaches in this area as soon as I can."
I only had a brief time with him, but it was enough for me to conclude ODU hit a home run with Rahne. He will bring new energy and a different style of coaching and communicating with players and fans that I think ODU needs.
Yes, I work for ODU, but I wouldn't say this unless I believed it to be true.
The guy carries himself like a winner. He's coached at the highest levels of college football. He has so much energy and enthusiasm.
ODU got the right guy.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: Ricky Rahne is Eager to get to Work at ODU
