Second in a 5-part series looking ahead to ODU's 2021 football season.
By Harry Minium
When you see Old Dominion's offense line up next football season, don't be surprised if it looks a lot like the system employed at a certain Big Ten program in State College, Pennsylvania.
First-year coach Ricky Rahne was offensive coordinator for Penn State before ODU hired him away last December. And Monarch offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kirk Campbell was one of his right-hand men.
So, of course, the Monarchs will borrow a lot from the Nittany Lions.
Campbell was an offensive analyst for three seasons with the Nittany Lions, and was interim quarterbacks coach after Rahne left to come to ODU.
Campbell has a deep background as a coordinator. He was the offensive coordinator at Alderson Broaddus (W. Va.) for five years prior to joining Penn State. His Alderson Broaddus teams averaged 34.7 points per game and, in 2016, he led them to a 9-2 record, in just their fourth season of football.
"We're going to run an offense very similar to what we ran at Penn State, but with some wrinkles," Campbell said.
"We've studied other teams and adapted and made some changes for our personnel, which we will do every season. We are going to be an offense that is going to put people in the best place to be successful.
"No matter what the defense does, we want to give our guys a chance to gain positive yards."
ODU officials decided not to play football this fall in order to protect the health of players, coaches and fans. Instead, the Monarchs practiced through November.
ODU made the best of its time in practice, including 14 in full pads and helmets.
"We would all love to have been playing football games," Campbell said. "But the ability to work with them so much in practice this fall was extremely beneficial.
"The plan coach Rahne and (Athletic Director) Wood Selig put together for us to be able to practice and develop our athletes was the best thing we could do in this situation.
"We got a lot of work in and we've had a number of individuals who really improved. Our players embraced the situation and have worked hard. They also embraced our offense."
It was difficult for me to adequately assess ODU's offense in the fall. The quarterbacks don't yet fully know the offense and many of the guys who will play key roles for ODU are young.
The defense looked more advanced that the offense in ODU's last scrimmage, although the Monarch O scored a lot in the late going.
But clearly, there is a lot of talent and potential.
"Being a young team will not be an excuse," Campbell said. "That's part of our jobs to get our guys ready to play and we will.
"I feel very confident with 50 men on our offense will be able to roll. We will be prepared."
Quarterback, of course, is the most important player on any offense and it's yet to be determined who will start.
Redshirt senior Stone Smartt and redshirt freshman Hayden Wolff are the favorites out of the gate. A junior college transfer, Smartt completed 101 of 177 passes for 1,006 yards and a touchdown with six interceptions last season.
Smartt was inconsistent in 2019 but has looked much improved this fall.
Wolff started three of ODU's final four games and completed 75 of 129 passes for 737 yards and two touchdowns.
True freshmen Dominique Anthony and Reese Poffenbarger provide depth. Both are from Maryland and played in the 2019 state championship game, when Poffenbarger's Middletown team defeated Anthony and Potomac High.
I would not be surprised if ODU signs another quarterback, perhaps a transfer, to beef up the competition. Regardless, Rahne said he was pleased with his quarterbacks.
"I liked how they have competed," Rahne said. "I've been happy with how they've gone about their business.
"This is not one of those situations where I want to make a decision too fast. We've got to let that play itself out and make sure we've got the right guy lined up behind center."
ODU's running game should be a strength. Depth at running back, coached by Tony Lucas, is better than it's been in a few years.
"It's our deepest position," Campbell said. "We've got four or five guys who could be a starter for anyone in our league."
Again, there is as yet no starter, but 5-foot-9, 198-pound tailback Ricky Slade will obviously see a lot of playing time. The transfer from Penn State was a 5-star recruit in high school and rushed 65 yards for a touchdown in ODU's last scrimmage.
Elijah Davis, the stalwart, 5-foot-10, 190-pound sophomore from Lynchburg, rushed 79 times for 377 yards and four touchdowns playing as backup for Kesean Strong in 2019. Blake Watson rushed for 119 yards, but will see most of his playing time on kickoff returns, where he was an All-Conference USA pick last season.
Former walk-on Matt Geiger has been a surprise player every season – he continues to get better – and is an excellent receiver as well as a hard-nosed runner.
Keshawn Wicks, a redshirt freshman from South Carolina, "has begun to come into his own," Lucas said, and true freshman Obie Sanni rushed for 1,600 yards and 29 touchdowns in Colorado, Rahne's home state.
Expect ODU to go at least four deep into its running back lineup every game.
"We don't want to put too much on anyone's plate," Lucas said.
Campbell said his running backs "are doing more than just running with the football. They're doing a great job pass protecting and blocking."
The offensive line, coached by Kevin Reihner, is talented but needs to develop depth. Depth begins with 6-6, 296-pound senior Isaac Weaver, who started 35 games for the Monarchs, including 32 in a row before he was sidelined by a concussion last season. Weaver has developed into one of the team leaders.
"He can play multiple positions," Campbell said, including center.
Khadere Kounta, who started seven games as a freshman in 2019, "has been terrific," Campbell said.
"The entire offensive line has been good."
That includes a pair of true freshmen from Rahne's first recruiting class – Santana Saunders, who is 6-foot-5 and 270 pounds, and Talyn Hunter, who is 6-4 and 260.
Saunders decommitted from Maryland last February and signed with ODU. He is rated the fifth-best player ever to sign with ODU by 247Sports. Hunter turned down offers from Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina.
ODU is least experienced at wide receiver, coached by Mark Dupius, and tight end, coached by Jonathan Decoster, but the talent pool is fairly deep.
Darius Savedge, a 6-foot-3 redshirt sophomore, played as a redshirt freshmen in 2019, when he caught four passes for 47 yards in ODU's final game of the season. Cornell Hendrick Jr., a 6-1 redshirt sophomore from Manson, N.C., had 10 receptions and played on special teams in 2019. Both had a good fall, Campbell said.
So did a pair of freshman – Javon Harvey, a 5-11 redshirt freshman from Norfolk's Lake Taylor High School, and Isiah Paige, a true freshman from Varina High just outside of Richmond, who was the Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Metro Offensive Player of the Year in 2019 and had 2,500 receiving and more than 2,000 rushing yards.
Expect ODU to throw to its tight end more than in recent years.
ODU ran a hurry-up offense in its decade before slowing things down in 2019, the last under coach Bobby Wilder. Expect ODU's offensive tempo to be somewhere in between in 2021.
ODU will line up for every down in the shotgun, and was Rahne told the Norfolk Sports Club earlier this year, that will include fourth down with inches to go.
Campbell said the Monarchs will put up a lot of points.
"Our guys have done a great job of embracing the offense, of understanding the concepts and ideas," he said. "Their improvement has been pretty drastic. We've gotten a lot better in our fundamentals, which is important, and overall understanding of the scheme.
"We've gotten better and we're going to get better in the spring."
And hopefully score a lot of points.
"That's what we're expecting," Campbell said. "We're expecting our offense to play very well."
Coming Friday: ODU's defense, perennially the program's Achilles Heel
Minium: ODU's Offense May Look a Little Like a Certain Big Ten University in State College, Pennsylvania
