By Harry Minium
Conference USA held its football media day Wednesday, via Zoom, and Old Dominion University football coach Ricky Rahne got some interesting questions.
Yes, he's in favor of the proposed expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams because it gives all 130 Football Bowl Subdivision schools a chance to take part in what will become the greatest playoff in all college sports.
Had 12 teams been involved instead of four in 2020, two would have been from Group of 5, including Coastal Carolina.
If Coastal Carolina can get there, there is no reason for ODU not to aspire to do the same.
He's also pushing hard for ODU to sell out its home opener against Hampton, and realizes that because the game will be played on Sept. 11, the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history, it will be a solemn day. There will be plenty of military pomp and circumstance.
It will also be a day to celebrate as it will be the first football game played at the stadium since November of 2019.
But he wasn't asked about the most important development in ODU football in recent months – ODU's transformation into a recruiting juggernaut in Hampton Roads.
While NCAA rules forbid me from mentioning names and schools, suffice it to say that ODU went head-to-head with schools from the ACC, Big Ten and SEC and got some big-name local players to commit. June, the first month in which recruits could visit campuses in more than a year, was a month of unprecedented local success for the Monarchs.
As an FCS school, ODU recruited pretty well locally, but since ODU joined FBS, local recruiting has fallen off in a big way.
Rahne's first recruiting class cracked the mold, when LaMareon James, rated the No. 3 player in Hampton Roads, signed with ODU in 2020. He had multiple ACC offers.
The Virginian-Pilot's Larry Rubama, who tracks local recruiting like no one else in the region, did a story a few years ago lamenting ODU's lack of local signing success.
"The story was about how few of our players were staying in state, but also that almost none of our players were going to ODU," Larry said.
That mystified Larry, because many of those players get the chance to play sooner at ODU than they might in the ACC and because the Monarchs play such a tough non-conference schedule. ODU has future home games with Wake Forest and Virginia and 10 future games with Virginia Tech, including five at ODU.
No one else in the Group of 5 has so many home games with Power 5 schools.
Mix in trips to South Carolina and Indiana and some future opponents to be named, and you get the picture – come to ODU and you get to play against some of the very best, and in your hometown, where your family and friends can easily watch.
"ODU's class this summer is remarkable," Larry said. "Coaches say that coach Rahne and his staff have all done a great job.
"ODU is relevant again in high school recruiting and they haven't been in the past."
The pandemic shut down in-person recruiting for nearly a year and a half, but ODU compensated by reaching out to local coaches and players extensively.
"Local coaches told me that the new coaching staff at ODU really stepped things up locally," Rubama said.
Rahne's first full recruiting class, in 2021, was ranked sixth in Conference USA by 247Sports, the recruiting site that most accurately covers C-USA. And that class did not include seven transfers from other schools.
So far, ODU is ranked fifth in recruiting among 14 C-USA teams for the class of 2022.
While recruiting ratings generally aren't completely accurate, when you look at the 247Sports website, you'll see that the teams constantly in the top half generally go to bowl games. That bodes well for ODU's future.
"I think the recent players they got will help them in more players in the future," Rubama said. "Coach Rahne has done a great job in making his mark here."
As Rahne often says, recruiting is a team effort. Virtually every coach takes part in recruiting every player.
But running backs coach Tony Lucas also deserves a ton of credit. He is in charge of recruiting the 757 area.
Rahne said that ODU made some "cosmetic changes" to the L.R. Hill Sports Complex where the team trains that helped make the place look more inviting. It also told players who had been to ODU before that the school is investing in its facilities.
By cosmetic, he means they weren't terribly expensive, but they give the building a much more modern and luxurious look. New wall decorations, new lights, new signage and many other changes give the building a whole new vibe.
My favorite change is a back-lit sign that says: 1-0. CARE. COMPETE. CHARACTER.
The message means that ODU focuses on every day as a chance to get better, will compete hard every game, the players and coaches care for each other and they will compete with good sportsmanship and behavior off the field and in the classroom.
I'm not sure what more a parent could ask than that from a program.
Washington Football team quarterback Taylor Heinicke says he's not at all surprised that Rahne has broken through the obstacles that stood in the way of good local recruiting.
"I've gotten to know Ricky Rahne and he's got so much energy and is so positive," Heinicke said. "He's coached at Penn State and competed at the highest level.
"Why wouldn't local guys want the chance to play at home and play great football?
"I think coach Rahne is going to win a lot of games."
Rahne said he tells players that if they want to play in the NFL, you want to go to a school where you can play and play early. Heinicke, Rick Lovato, Zach Pascal, Oshane Ximines, Travis Fulgham, et. al., show you can make it to The Show from ODU.
"If your dream is to play at the highest level possible, then I think one thing we're telling you is that you need to play as many reps as possible, get as much film as you possibly can," Rahne said.
He said good local players are also likely to do well signing lucrative Name Image and Likeness deals with local businesses while attending ODU. The NIL, while still in the formative stages, allows players to profit from their name and images, but with strict rules that keep colleges out of the business of making deals for players.
Lastly, he said he's going to be honest with every recruit.
"We're always going to do that," he said. "Some guys are only going to want to hear what they want to hear. And we're not going to get those guys."
Regardless, he said, he's not backing down with going head-to-head with Virginia, Virginia Tech and others on the recruiting trail.
"We're not going to win every battle," he said. "But we're going to win some."
Winning those battles is the key to future success.
As for this season, to no one's surprise, ODU was picked last in the Conference USA East by every poll I've seen, including the league coaches. The Monarchs didn't play last season because of the pandemic, and there was a lot of roster turnover when they changed coaches in late 2019, so ODU is likely the nation's most inexperienced team and one of the youngest.
Rahne smiled when I asked him about being picked last.
He mentioned the 2016 Penn State team as an example of how uncertain preseason rankings can be. The Nittany Lions were consensus picks to finish fourth in the Big Ten's 7-team East Division.
They not only won the Big Ten title, they should have played in the College Football Playoff. Although the Nittany Lions beat Ohio State and won the league championship game, the Buckeyes were seeded fourth in the CFP and got blown out by Clemson. Penn State finished fifth in the CFP rankings.
I remember when ODU made its 2011 debut in the Colonial Athletic Association the Monarchs were picked to finish tenth of 11 teams. Towson was picked No. 11.
Towson won the CAA title, on the strength of one broken play in a heartbreaking loss for ODU at old Foreman Field. The Monarchs finished second, went 10-3, beat Norfolk State in the FCS playoffs and finished tenth nationally in all the FCS polls.
The lesson here is that coaches, sports writers and so-called prognosticating experts don't really know what's going on behind the scenes with any program.
No one truly knows what to expect from ODU, which hasn't played a game in nearly two years and has a coaching staff that will coach its first game together on Sept. 3, when the Monarchs open at Wake Forest.
ODU lost some good players to the transfer portal and gained some. It has three quarterbacks competing to start – D.J. Mack Jr., Stone Smartt and Hayden Wolff, all of whom have started. Smartt and Wolff both started at ODU and Mack at Central Florida.
It's way too early for anyone to how good this team will be, but it bodes well that at the most important position in football, ODU has three, talented, experienced players who are competing hard.
"There is information people around the country aren't privy to about us because we didn't play last year," Rahne said. "People don't know that some of our guys are bigger and faster and have really dedicated themselves in the weight room and the film room.
"I love our team and I love how hard our kids are working and their attitude."
And what's not to love about ODU's recent recruiting?
Minium worked 39 years at The Virginian-Pilot, where he was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won 27 state and national writing awards. He writes news stories, features and commentaries for odusports.com Follow him on Twitter @Harry_MiniumODU, Instagram @hbminium1 or email hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU Football Team had Unprecedented Recruiting Success in Hampton Roads
