Minium: The ODU Team I Saw Practice Thursday Will be Better Than Most Pundits Predict

By Harry Minium

You often don't learn much about a college football team by watching its first summer practice. Guys are in helmets and jerseys and there's no blocking and tackling. It's a day of mostly running drills and catching and throwing. 

But I can say this with confidence after watching Old Dominion's first practice Thursday – ODU is not the second-worst Football Bowl Subdivision team in the country, as CBSsports.com claims in its FBS ratings.

Nor do I think the Monarchs will finish last in the Conference USA East Division, as every publication in America has predicted.

I'm not saying ODU will win a championship or even have a winning record. It's way too early to predict what's going to happen. Will players step up at positions where ODU needs depth? Might ODU lose some players to injuries? All questions that will be answered over the next month.

However, even in helmets and jerseys, it was evident this program is in a much better place than when the Monarchs went 1-11 in 2019.
 
Three things stood out to me:

* The physical growth and maturation of the Monarchs, especially those returning from 2019. Offensive lineman Khadere Kounta, only the third true freshman ever to start for ODU on the O-line, has gained 24 pounds (he's 6-foot-6, 309) and looks faster and more mature.

Defensive end Marcus Haynes (6-4, 251) gained 36 pounds. Running back Matt Geiger has gone from 184 pounds to 197 and looks like he's ready for a GQ photo shoot.

Offensive lineman Nick Saldiveri (6-6, 307) gained just seven pounds, but changed his body. Gone is the belly you see on so many lineman, replaced largely with muscle.

"So many of our kids look totally different than they did the last time our fans saw them play," offensive line coach Kevin Reihner said.

A ton of credit goes to sports performance coach Dwight Galt IV, who has pushed and cajoled the players in the weight room and on the field, and that includes the fall of 2020, a difficult time for the Monarchs because their season was canceled because of the pandemic.

"Coach Galt and his staff have done a great job," coach Ricky Rahne said. "But the kids also deserve a lot of credit.

"They bought into our 1-0 mentality and said to themselves, 'Hey, I'm not going to pout. I'm going to get better every single day.' And they have."

Galt called the last 21 months "the world's longest off season. A lot of other teams could have put down their head and sulked. But our guys took what could have been a negative and turned it into a huge positive."


ODU Director of Sports Performance, Dwight Galt IV

* The enthusiasm level at practice was off the charts. When freshman wide receiver Jordan Bly fended off a defender and took the ball away on a long pass, bringing it in as he hit the turf, he didn't need fans to cheer. His teammates were whooping and hollering.

So was Rahne's coaching staff, the youngest in the country when he put it together in 2020.

The coaching staff's enthusiasm, and confidence, is infectious.

"The atmosphere is definitely much different than it was before," Saldiveri said. "But I feel like now, that's the standard here, that's the norm.

"We've been doing it since last fall. We're animated. The coaches are animated. We're just bringing more juice and having fun and getting better every day."

* This team is faster, not only as a result of Galt and his staff, but also recruiting. If given a choice between size and speed, Rahne prefers speed.

The son of Dre' Bly, the former NFL star from Chesapeake who coaches at North Carolina, Jordan Bly is just 5-foot-10, but has speed to burn. 

A lot of returning players also made themselves faster. Galt noted that quarterback Stone Smartt, a senior who started much of 2019, was among those who worked to get faster and did.

Quarterback is another reason for ODU fans to be hopeful. ODU has three good, experienced players at the most important position on the field, Smartt, D.J. Mack Jr. and Hayden Wolff.

Who's leading the pack? It's way too early to tell. It may take weeks to figure out the quarterback depth chart.

ODU's 10 transfers, including two on both the offensive and defensive lines, give a young team a needed dose of experience.

The offensive line appears deep, as does the defensive backfield.

Placekicker Nick Rice, a senior; and punter Ethan Duane, a freshman from Melbourne, Australia, give ODU a strong kicking game. Duane boomed punts high and long. And I mean this as a compliment – his legs are so muscular they look like tree trunks.

There are holes to fill and ODU will need a goodly number of freshmen to step up right away.

Yet this team is motivated, far more than most. The Monarchs didn't play last season and that was a difficult experience.

"It was terrible having to watch other people play when we couldn't," said senior safety Joe Joe Headen.

And not just for the players. It was equally difficult for the coaches.

"I'm looking forward to these guys having the opportunity to go out and prove how hard they've worked for 21 months," Rahne said. "I'm excited about getting the chance to watch them against somebody else."

Asked about the pundits, Rahne said preseason predictions are essentially worthless.

"I think a lot of people who make predictions wish they didn't have to," he said. "They're given little information and asked to do something that everyone holds it up like it's the bible."

He said he and his players haven't talked about the predictions, just the opener on Friday, Sept. 3, at Wake Forest, in which Rahne will make his ODU debut on national television.

"We're past what other people think about us right now," Rahne said. "We went a whole year without playing and a lot of people had a lot of things to say about us.

"Right now, we're about each other and our belief in each other, and that's the most important thing."

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