By Harry Minium
GREENSBORO, N.C. - When he was a freshman at Cornell University, and eating a pre-game meal before his first home football game, Ricky Rahne picked up his spoon, scooped up what he thought was a big bite of ice cream and plunged it into his mouth.
But it wasn't ice cream. While some of his older teammates distracted him, a senior had replaced his ice vanilla ice cream with a big lob of butter.
Laughter, of course, erupted around the room. It was the typical kind of friendly practical joke freshmen always take from seniors. It's also a prank he will never forget.
Which in a roundabout way explains why the Old Dominion University football team left Thursday morning, kind of an early departure, for tonight's game at Wake Forest (7 p.m., ACC Network).
It is the first road trip for ODU since November of 2019 and for Rahne, ODU's head coach, the first chance for his team to bond away from campus.
ODU did not play in 2020 because of the pandemic and Friday's game will be the first in 22 months for the Monarchs.
Rahne wanted to get here early so the team could spend a good 24 hours together at a nice hotel without the usual distractions.
"You don't always remember what happened on that first third down and seven," he said. "But those things you do together, you don't forget.
"Those bonding experiences are what are going to help you be successful because you know you can trust the guy next to you because you have a bond with him that's never going go to away."
The four team bases pulled in Greensboro, a hotel surrounded by lakes and lush grass and trees, a little after 3 p.m.
The players had a team meal, then meetings together Thursday night, and then a lot of free time. On Friday, they were scheduled to sleep in, have more team meetings and eat together before heading up the road to Truist Field in Winston-Salem.
"We want the guys to get a chance to get there and get a nap," Rahne said. "Some of these hotel beds may be the nicest beds our kids sleep in all year. Let's give them a chance to take advantage of it.
"Sleep is such a key performance indicator, and quite frankly I know as coaches we don't get nearly enough sleep, and I know our kids probably don't either.
"A lot of it just about being together and just thinking about the task and hand."
Rahne acknowledged he's not sure what to expect when his young and inexperienced Monarchs take on an ACC team on the road.
He said as a young coach, he would often judge teams before they had played a game. Now that he's older – if you consider 40 old – he said he knows better.
From my perspective, ODU's program is in better shape than the one he took over in December of 2019. The coaches have lured more talented players, the team is more cohesive and disciplined and the defense more relentless.
The Monarchs will win more games than they did in 2019, when they were 1-11.
But beyond that, it's difficult to judge how good this team will be, especially given the unusual circumstances.
There is good potential here, but half of ODU's players are newcomers, including nearly half of the
starters. The coaching staff, for the most part, has been together for 20 months but has never coached a game together. While the talent is good, most of it is inexperienced.
Your season opener is always difficult, but imagine playing your first season opener in two years and on the road against a Power 5 opponent.
ODU is a 31 or 32-point underdog tonight against Wake Forest, depending on who's doing the forecasting and on paper, that's understandable.
Wake Coach Dave Clawson, who won a couple of CAA titles at Richmond, has taken the Demon Deacons to five consecutive bowl games, third best in the ACC.
That's an amazing track record at Wake Forest, a private school with 5,287 undergraduates and elite academic and modest facilities compared to their ACC brethren.
"He's an outstanding coach who has done amazing things at Wake Forest," said ODU running backs coach Tony Lucas, who coached with Clawson at Bowling Green.
And this could be his best team. Clawson has 20 of 22 starters from a team that finished 4-5 last season and defeated both Virginia and Virginia Tech.
The Deacs don't make mistakes – they were first in the ACC with a +10 turnover margin. Quarterback Sam Hartman is a redshirt sophomore who has passed for 5,083 yards and likely will move into the top five of Wake Forest's all-time passers this season. He threw just one interception throwing 236 regular-season passes last season.
His favorite target is Jaquarii Roberson, who had seven receptions for 103 yards per game. When the offense gets within field-goal range, Wake has one of the best around in Nick Sciba, who makes 89 percent of his field goal attempts.
The defense gave up 435.7 yards per game, but Rahne said injuries were a major problem, and most of those issues have been solved.
ODU has just eight offensive and defensive starters back from 2019 but has five or six FBS transfers who will start. And while the last 22 months have been difficult for ODU, Rahne and his staff had a lot of time to change the culture and mold his players into a team.
ODU's offense has looked stellar in recent practices after weeks of the defense looking dominant.
Wake won't know until shortly before kickoff whether Stone Smartt, Hayden Wolff or D.J. Mack Jr. will start at quarterback. All three are different kinds of players and ODU is tailoring the offense to its quarterback.
It's possible that the Deacs may have some issues early on dealing with ODU's offense and defense and that could give the Monarchs some momentum.
But the truth is, Rahne said, it's difficult to predict with any accuracy what's going to happen.
"Quite frankly, you don't know how guys are going to react once you get into a live game," Rahne said.
"That's a different deal. When you're in an actual live game and the crowd is going and lights are on as opposed to what we do on the practice field, sometimes guys do totally different things, good or bad.
"Some guys play a lot better when the lights come on. But there are other guys who the pressure gets to them and they revert to some old habits.
"That's why I don't know where we are."
He stopped for a second said added: "I do think we've made some major, major improvements. I think we're much improved and that's the truth."
It is the truth.
But let's remember, when Rahne came here, he had to rebuild this program, almost from top to bottom. Over the last four seasons, ODU was 5-7, 4-8, 1-11 and did not play.
It often takes two or three season to build a winner.
I'm not saying that's the case here. At this point, we just don't know.
But regardless of what happens tonight, Rahne has the program headed in the right direction.
Minium: ODU Football Team Left Norfolk Early for Wake Forest for a Little Team Bonding
