Minium: ODU Football is a Pipeline to the NFL
ODU Defensive Coordinator Blake Seiler: "We tell kids all the time that if you come here, you’re going to get developed, and you can go to play in the NFL."
By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Old Dominion’s football program did not play its first game until 2009 and thus is one of the youngest in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Yet, because ODU has focused on developing players under head coaches Bobby Wilder and later Ricky Rahne, it has a well-earned reputation as a pipeline to the NFL.
Last season, App State, which has been playing football almost a century, led the Sun Belt Conference’s 14 schools with 13 players on opening day NFL rosters. ODU was tied for second with Louisiana, another long-established program, with 10.
ODU is third in Virginia, behind only Virginia and Virginia Tech, in producing NFL players, and has as many in the NFL as James Madison and Liberty combined.
ODU’s most famous NFL player is quarterback Taylor Heinicke, who is the backup QB for the Los Angeles Chargers and started for a while in Washington. Heinicke set virtually every passing record at ODU. Rick Lovato, the long snapper for Philadelphia when the Eagles won two Super Bowls, and Heinicke’s roommate at ODU, is also well known.
Both started four seasons at ODU.
But Zach Pascal may be a more pertinent example. Pascal has caught 167 passes for 2,057 yards in seven seasons with three different NFL teams. Pascal wasn’t highly recruited out of high school, yet developed into a star for the Monarchs.
During a recent visit to ODU with Heinicke, Pascal told the Monarchs that “I owe everything I’ve accomplished in the NFL to ODU.”
Another player who came to ODU and developed into a pro was tight end Zack Kuntz, a highly-regarded recruit who rarely played at Penn State but followed Rahne when he came to ODU and developed into an explosive offensive weapon.
Cornerback Tre Hawkins III was also signed by Rahne out of junior college and had only a handful of scholarship offers. But he blossomed at ODU and was drafted in the sixth round of the 2023 NFL draft.
Other ODU alumni in the NFL include linebacker Oshane Ximines, tight end Stone Smartt, offensive lineman Nick Saldiveri, running back Blake Watson and defensive end Keion White.
Watson and White finished their careers at Memphis and Georgia Tech, respectively, but both consider ODU to be their true alma mater.
And while they played well after transferring, some starters with NFL potential have left ODU for so-called greener pastures and ended up not playing.
The transfer portal, which allows unlimited transfers, and Name Image and Likeness contracts, in which players can receive sometimes lucrative salaries, has convinced some players to go elsewhere whose long-term futures would be better served at ODU.
“You have to have film for an NFL team to look at you,” said Blake Seiler, ODU’s defensive coordinator.
“We tell kids all the time that if you come here, you’re going to get developed, and you can go to play in the NFL.
“But if you come here and you play well as a sophomore, you’re going to have opportunities to leave because the Sun Belt is such a good league. Every Power 4 is going to be illegally recruiting you. Get ready for it.
“And let’s sit down and talk about it. If you’re going to a Power 4 school and you become a backup, like some of our guys have, when your eligibility is up, football is over for you because there’s not an NFL scout out there that is going to bring you into training camp.
“That hurt some players who left us.
“But if you come to Old Dominion and you play and you start in the Sun Belt, especially for multiple years, you’re going to get an opportunity. You’re going to get into camp. You may not get drafted but you’re going to get an opportunity and that’s what everyone needs.
“And if you can’t get that opportunity, then it’s time to go enter the real world.
“We give players great opportunities to be seen because of the schedule we play (Virginia Tech and Indiana are on ODU’s schedule in 2025) and because we play in the Sun Belt, which to me, is a power league.
“You can get from here to the NFL from here just as well as you can from anywhere else.”
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Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram