By Harry Minium
Quarterback Taylor Heinicke was the best and most entertaining football player ever to don Old Dominion University blue, and if you never saw him play, you truly missed a thing of beauty.
He set passing records that may never be broken, but just saying that understates what he did for the University and the football program.
He came off the bench five games into his freshman year in 2010 and led a program in just its third season into the FCS Top 10. He did it again in 2012 and then, in 2013 and 2014, he led the Monarchs into a successful FBS debut.
He was smart, humble and very much a human being unafraid to show his emotions. He still wears a tattoo on his left arm dedicated to his father, who passed way when he was a freshman, and pointed the sky to his father after every TD.
He hugged and kissed his mother, Diane Dodsworth, and sister, Lauren, on the field after many ODU games.
With boyish good looks and a disarming smile, he quickly became a fan favorite.
He was deceptively quick and fast and knew where receivers would be often before they knew it. Rarely was ODU out of a game until the final minutes.
So many epic Heinicke-led comeback victories – at home and on the road against James Madison, home against Louisiana Tech and New Hampshire and at Rice and Florida Atlantic – come to mind.
And his stats? They were absolutely amazing.
Heinicke completed 1,238 of 1,829 career passes (68 percent) for 14,959 yards and 132 touchdowns and when he closed his ODU locker for the final time, he did so as the sixth most prolific passer ever in Division I.
His 14,959 yards would be the FCS record if ODU had remained in that division. He would rank sixth among all FBS passers.
And who can forget his magnificent performance in 2011, when ODU overcame a 23-point third quarter deficit to shock New Hampshire, 64-41? Heinicke became the first college football in history at any level to accumulate 790 offensive yards in a single game.
Now, nearly six years after Heinicke departed from ODU, he plans to return.
Assuming an NFL team doesn't call in the next few weeks, Heinicke plans to take care of some unfinished business – earning his college degree.
He was a good student at ODU, but majoring in engineering, playing football and leaving after 3 ½ years left him a few credits short of a degree.
He has since switched majors to mathematics and has been taking classes online, but he wants to finish on campus.
Taylor plans to live in downtown Norfolk and take classes both this fall and next spring. If all goes well, he will finally walk on stage at Chartway Arena and receive his diploma from President John R. Broderick in May of 2021, nearly ten years after he first set foot at ODU.
"Getting my degree is really important," he said. "I wish I could have finished while I was in school, but majoring in engineering, it was really tough.
"It's a shadow that's been hanging over me for the last four or five years. With football looking like it's coming to an end, it's something I'm really looking forward to."
Heinicke left ODU with high hopes of making it in the NFL, but because he was just 6-feet tall, knew he needed to find just the right fit, and get a kindly glance from Lady Luck, to make it.
Alas, Heinicke hasn't had a ton of luck. Good players often don't make it in the NFL because they land with a team that's the wrong fit for their talent, don't get a true chance to compete or they get injured.
Unless you're a superstar, you must be in the right place at the right time. Zach Pascal, to whom Heinicke threw many a touchdown pass, found the right place in Indianapolis, where he's now a starter for the Colts.
Heinicke was released by four NFL teams, had two major injuries and although he had a great time in the XFL this past spring with the St. Louis Battlehawks, he didn't play. And the XFL the season was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic.
While the XFL is a great concept, it's doubtful the league will return next season. It's also doubtful, at this late hour, that Taylor will get an invitation from another NFL team.
Nor has he considered offers he's received from the Canadian Football League.
"It's a totally different game in a different country," he said.
Beginning with 12 players on a side, three downs, players running in motion and some games played in arctic-like temperatures.
"Rather than adapt to all of that, I'd rather get on with the next chapter of my life," he said.
That next chapter might include coaching.
He said he began to get the coaching urge when he was a backup quarterback in the NFL and XFL.
"I really enjoyed helping the younger guys," he said. "I realized I like working with players. .
"Regardless of whether I'm going to play again or not, I want to give coaching a couple of years. I just don't want to let go of football just yet. I still love the game and want to be a part of it"
Ideally, he says he would be a volunteer coach for ODU this fall, but given the coronavirus pandemic, and the NCAA's funky rules on volunteer coaches, "that's kind of a gray area," he said.
"We don't even know if football will be played," he said.
First-year coach Ricky Rahne says he would would love to have Heinicke and they have discussed the possibility. But one of the rules that goes along with being a volunteer coach is that although you can work with coaches, you can't work with players.
And assuming football is played this spring, the coronavirus might force all but salaried coaches off the field.
Regardless, Heinicke says he will be involved with ODU football.
"I did a Zoom meeting with (offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach) Kirk Campbell and the quarterbacks a few months ago," he said. "It was a great meeting. They had a lot of questions of how to deal with certain situations.
"I feel like the program is turning around, that they're going to make something happen."
Heinicke said he's enthused about Rahne, who was Penn State's offensive coordinator last season.
"I like Ricky a lot and love his energy," Heinicke said. "I feel like he's one of those coaches who's going to make it exciting to come to the facility every day.
"He's going to make it fun and he's going to challenge you every day."
For those not familiar with Heinicke, he was Georgia's career high school passing leader while playing in suburban Atlanta and yet had no Division I scholarship offers midway during his senior year. Thanks to a chance meeting between Earl Williams, Heinicke's personal trainer, and ODU's Alonzo Brandon in the Atlanta airport, the Monarchs were the first to offer him.
Williams told Brandon, ODU's vice president for university advancement and development, that the Monarchs would be sorry if they didn't recruit Heinicke.
Brandon passed that on and after viewing film, then quarterbacks coach Ron Whitcomb immediately offered Heinicke a scholarship.
Richmond was the second to offer, but it was already too late. Whitcomb, now coaching at Buffalo, and Heinicke had formed a close bond which remains.
Heinicke was a freshman on course to redshirt when an injury to Thomas DeMarco forced him to come off the bench in the second half against UMass in 2011. He led the Monarchs to an upset of the nationally ranked Minutemen and didn't skip a beat until his final game, when he led the Monarchs past FAU, and a 6-6 record in their first FBS season, in Boca Raton, Fla..
ODU joined the CAA in 2011, and although picked to finish last, the Monarchs finished second in their first season and won the league championship in 2012. They were 6-0 against William and Mary, JMU and Richmond in their two CAA seasons.
Heinicke had everything to do with that success, winning the Walter Payton Award, the so-called Heisman Trophy of FCS, in 2012. The final tally wasn't close.
An aside here: ODU isn't officially recognized as the 2012 CAA champion.
CAA officials were furious when the Monarchs announced they were moving up to FBS and joining Conference USA and, in a move that now most agree was rash and a little juvenile, denied all ODU teams the chance to win any league championships in their final season.
The Monarchs finished first in the league anyway and as with UCF and the mythical 2017 national title, declared themselves CAA champions. All players and coaches received 2012 CAA championship rings.
Heinicke's No. 14 jersey remains among the most popular among ODU fans, and I hope that one day the school sees fit to retire his number and make a place for him in its hall of fame – he's not eligible for two more years.Regardless, it will be good to see him back on campus.
"When you're a young teenager in college, you just want to do your work and get the heck out of there," he said.
"I'm a little older now and have more patience. I'm a little more interested in learning.
"I'm looking forward to getting back in the classroom."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: Taylor Heinicke is Returning to ODU to Finish His Degree, and Perhaps Help the Monarch Football Team
