By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – When the dust settled from the 65 Football Bowl Subdivision games played Thanksgiving week, 83 teams had qualified for the available 82 bowl game berths.
That means one team that fought hard and won six games and is hoping to travel to a warm destination or a really cool venue will instead be sitting home.
And as experience has taught us, it will be a Group of 5 school that gets left out.
Surely bowl sponsors, Conference USA and ESPN understand that Old Dominion not only deserves a bowl bid but is one of the most compelling stories of the 2021 college football season.
Let's set the stage.
Five years ago, ODU went 10-3 and beat Eastern Michigan in the Bahamas Bowl. The Monarchs then finished 5-7 in 2017, 4-8 in 2018 and 1-11 in 2019.
Penn State offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne was hired in late 2019 to resurrect the program, and he hired the youngest coaching staff in America.
Then, in 2020, ODU was one of three FBS schools to elect not to play because of the pandemic.
Rahne faced a mammoth rebuilding task and not playing last season made it even more difficult. Most of the players who started for ODU in its first game against Wake Forest had not played a live football game in nearly two years.
ODU was ranked 129th out of 130 FBS schools by CBS Sports during the preseason. And the Monarchs looked dead in the water following a 43-20 home loss to Western Kentucky on Oct. 16.
ODU was 1-6 and had lost three heartbreaking games. The Monarchs outscored Buffalo, 27-0, in the second half and lost 35-34. They led Marshall with only seconds to go and lost, 20-13, in overtime. They led UTEP in the second half and lost, 28-21.
The losses to Marshall and UTEP, which both finished 7-5, were on the road.
At that point, many teams would have thrown in the towel. But ODU instead played with heart and poise won its last five games, mowing down Louisiana Tech, FIU, Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee and Charlotte in succession. ODU won those games by an average of 14 points per game.
Last in the Conference USA East Division in October, the Monarchs finished in a tie with Marshall for second place. And consider, had the Monarchs won those three close games, they would be 9-3.
Some teams limped to a 6-6 record but ODU is playing its best football of the season.
This team played with incredible poise under a ton of adversity. And in Saturday's 56-34 victory over Charlotte, the Monarchs were explosive and exciting.
Ali Jennings III, the West Virginia transfer, caught nine passes for 252 yards and three touchdowns. ODU's defense forced four turnovers and Deeve Harris, the freshman defensive end, scored his second touchdown of the season when he recovered a fumble in the end zone.
Rahne also makes this a compelling game. As Penn State's offensive coordinator, he is well known nationally, and he and his coaching staff performed remarkably this season.
ODU is the dominant sports team in a top 50 TV market and has a good fan base with a pent-up demand to see a bowl game.
ODU could end up at one of more than a dozen bowl games, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Mobile, Alabama to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and frankly, the Monarchs could care less about their destination.
Rahne said his players, and ODU fans, will embrace a bowl bid no matter where they play.
"I know there are some people at some schools who might say, 'Oh, we're going to this bowl, and that may not be a great place,'" Rahne said.
"If you want to talk about a group that's going to be very thankful and unbelievably appreciative of any opportunity that they get to play one more game together, that would be us."
The last time ODU played in a bowl, most fans couldn't make it because it's difficult and expensive to get to the Bahamas.
Even so, the University sold 1,750 tickets, at the time the most any team had ever sold for the Bahamas Bowl. The ODU following in Nassau dwarfed the turnout of Eastern Michigan fans and gave the Monarchs a true home-field advantage.
Give Monarch Nation a destination they can reach more easily and they will embrace any bowl game anywhere.
The potential issue here is that Conference USA is only guaranteed seven bowl bids and has eight teams that qualified.
Other leagues, including the Sun Belt and ACC, did not fill all their allotted bowl games, so it's possible that all eight Conference USA teams could end up in bowl games.
Let's hope so. The joy in ODU's locker room following the victory over Charlotte was enough to bring tears to my eyes.
"If you're a human being who likes college football, and you go into that locker room, there is a zero percent chance you're not sending that team to a bowl game," Rahne said.
His post-game victory speeches are generally short and this was the shortest all season.
"You know I like to keep it short and sweet when we win, we get one more," Rahne said, screaming the last few words out loud and then being engulfed by dozens of happy players.
Head athletic trainer Justin Walker, who has become a post-game celebration mainstay, tied 2-liter bottles of soft drink to his hands and drank parts of them down, with most foaming all over the front of his shirt.
Players jumped on Justin, bloodying his lip, in celebration.
Last week, after the Monarchs beat Middle Tennessee, he drank out of a boot, which Rahne said is a German tradition. Hey, I don't understand the traidtion, but ESPN, wouldn't that make for great TV?
There are some great individual stories on this team that speak to the character of ODU's program.
Quarterback Hayden Wolff and his family "adopted" punter Ethan Duane, who because of the pandemic, hasn't been back to Australia in two years. He spends every holiday in Florida with the Wolff family.
Former five-star recruit Zack Kuntz transferred from Penn State and the 6-foot-8 tight end has 71 receptions, second in Conference USA among all receivers and the second most by a tight end in the country.
Senior center Isaac Weaver lost his father when he was a child and credits his step-dad for being such a huge influence in his life.
Placekicker Nick Rice, one of the best in school history, almost didn't play college football. He had no offers until he literally sold himself to ODU. On Senior Day, he promoted an effort to raise funds for the American Cancer Society.
Why does cornerback and return specialist LaMareon James wear No. 2? In memory of Jaquan Yulee, the former Indian River High School and Marshall University player who died last summer in a car accident.
Wolff threw down the gauntlet to whoever ODU might play in a bowl game.
"We've been a different team the last five weeks," he said. "We're so much better.
"I'd hate to be the next team that steps on the field with us."
If there is justice in college football, that next game will come in December in a bowl venue.
There are few teams that worked harder nor showed more character than the Monarchs. And there is no team, nor any fan base, that would embrace a bowl game with any more passion than ODU.
Minium worked 39 years at The Virginian-Pilot before coming to ODU as a senior executive writer. He covers all ODU's athletic teams for odusports.com Follow him on Twitter @Harry_MiniumODU, Instagram @hbminium1 or email hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU Has One of the Most Compelling Stories in College Football and Deserves a Bowl Bid
