The unofficial online home for fans of the Old Dominion University Monarchs. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Our JuCo's were needed to spread out our classes. You will have ton of issues with 35 freshmen. The JuCo are some of our better students, you have less dropouts and most complete their degrees. They know what it takes to balance school and football. We've seen that ODU admission office isn't an open door. Look at Snowden, cleared by the NCAAs but didn't qualify for ODU and later went to another DI school.

I like how the program is run. To me Rice fans sound a lot Like WM fans.

(09-22-2014 11:38 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(09-21-2014 12:52 PM)ODUsmitty Wrote:  While this week's banter between Rice fans and ours hase been about as pleasant as I can recall, some Rice fans were making the "WM excuse" about academics not allowing them to recruit 'marginal students' from the JUCO ranks like we have.

Kudos to Razor for making a terrific post defending the school and the program. Well done!

http://csnbbs.com/thread-704343-page-17.html

When debating the academic ability of our students vs. those at W&M (or Rice), I would point to the numbers. They only have about 6,000 (give or take 1K) students vs. our 25,000. I would venture to say that our top 6,000 students are not terribly far behind their 6,000.

A great reply by Razor. We have gotten some great athletes and students from the JuCo ranks. This is just a csae of sour grapes and we have seen it before. It is unfairly disparaging to the JuCo athletes who may find themselves at a JuCo for a myriad of reasons. Just assuming poor academics is not only unfair, but just plain wrong. DeMarco came from a JuCo, because he had first gone to a DI school and was unhappy, so tranferred to a JuCo, then on to ODU. He left ODU with a MBA. David Born took the same route and was an Honor student in Biology. Shane McCarley left ODU to a JuCo, so he could be eligible to play. I hope he finds his way back to a DI school, as well.

I have often thought, "No way Jameis Winston stays on Bobby Wilder's team," and I am fine with that.

So Rice ran 88 plays, which is the most plays against us in the last 2 years. (Idaho ran 81, Howard ran 85) The good news is we "held" them to 5.98 yards per play, which is only slightly worse than Hampton and significantly better than NC State (7.28 ypp) To compare, the FBS teams last year had the following ypp vs us:

ECU 6.33
Maryland 8.51
Pittsburgh 5.87
Idaho 6.23
UNC 10.60

By far not a dominating performance, but consider Rice put up 5.56 yards per play vs. Notre Dame and 5.29 yards per play vs. Texas AM.

Great defense, by no means. But, there is certainly progress going on. This is still a very young defense and when you play at the tempo and style that our offense does, the other team is going to have a lot of drives and they will run a lot of plays. You can't expect another team to run 75 plays and gain less than 400 yards by any means.

After watching the game again our defensive line is much improved. Their aren't nearly as many holes inside and when there is an opening, the linebackers are doing a better job filling the gap. Our sideline to sideline ability is far greater than in previous years. I'm really impressed in the improvement our defensive tackles have made from last year and I think you saw that in some of the option plays that have been run against us this year, we are making the QB pitch the ball and doing a better job pursuing the ball carries.

(09-22-2014 03:57 PM)Gilesfan Wrote:  So Rice ran 88 plays, which is the most plays against us in the last 2 years. (Idaho ran 81, Howard ran 85) The good news is we "held" them to 5.98 yards per play, which is only slightly worse than Hampton and significantly better than NC State (7.28 ypp) To compare, the FBS teams last year had the following ypp vs us:

ECU 6.33
Maryland 8.51
Pittsburgh 5.87
Idaho 6.23
UNC 10.60

By far not a dominating performance, but consider Rice put up 5.56 yards per play vs. Notre Dame and 5.29 yards per play vs. Texas AM.

Great defense, by no means. But, there is certainly progress going on. This is still a very young defense and when you play at the tempo and style that our offense does, the other team is going to have a lot of drives and they will run a lot of plays. You can't expect another team to run 75 plays and gain less than 400 yards by any means.

After watching the game again our defensive line is much improved. Their aren't nearly as many holes inside and when there is an opening, the linebackers are doing a better job filling the gap. Our sideline to sideline ability is far greater than in previous years. I'm really impressed in the improvement our defensive tackles have made from last year and I think you saw that in some of the option plays that have been run against us this year, we are making the QB pitch the ball and doing a better job pursuing the ball carries.

GASP! are you saying you think the defense may not be terrible forever under Coach Wilder?

Good stat! I agree that while the defense remains a work in progress this season things are getting better and the future is bright.

(09-22-2014 03:57 PM)Gilesfan Wrote:  So Rice ran 88 plays, which is the most plays against us in the last 2 years. (Idaho ran 81, Howard ran 85) The good news is we "held" them to 5.98 yards per play, which is only slightly worse than Hampton and significantly better than NC State (7.28 ypp) To compare, the FBS teams last year had the following ypp vs us:

ECU 6.33
Maryland 8.51
Pittsburgh 5.87
Idaho 6.23
UNC 10.60

By far not a dominating performance, but consider Rice put up 5.56 yards per play vs. Notre Dame and 5.29 yards per play vs. Texas AM.

Great defense, by no means. But, there is certainly progress going on. This is still a very young defense and when you play at the tempo and style that our offense does, the other team is going to have a lot of drives and they will run a lot of plays. You can't expect another team to run 75 plays and gain less than 400 yards by any means.

After watching the game again our defensive line is much improved. Their aren't nearly as many holes inside and when there is an opening, the linebackers are doing a better job filling the gap. Our sideline to sideline ability is far greater than in previous years. I'm really impressed in the improvement our defensive tackles have made from last year and I think you saw that in some of the option plays that have been run against us this year, we are making the QB pitch the ball and doing a better job pursuing the ball carries.

I always wonder this after the play (or game), but it seems like we play zone defense in the secondary when we blitz. And if it is not a zone, our corners play 7-9 yards off the line of scrimmage. I could be totally wrong but I always look at where the corners line up and we rarely press. Then I'll see if the LB's blitz. When they do, it seems there are receivers finding open areas (hence the reason I suspect a zone).

Anyone else wondering about this?

(09-22-2014 06:37 PM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(09-22-2014 03:57 PM)Gilesfan Wrote:  So Rice ran 88 plays, which is the most plays against us in the last 2 years. (Idaho ran 81, Howard ran 85) The good news is we "held" them to 5.98 yards per play, which is only slightly worse than Hampton and significantly better than NC State (7.28 ypp) To compare, the FBS teams last year had the following ypp vs us:

ECU 6.33
Maryland 8.51
Pittsburgh 5.87
Idaho 6.23
UNC 10.60

By far not a dominating performance, but consider Rice put up 5.56 yards per play vs. Notre Dame and 5.29 yards per play vs. Texas AM.

Great defense, by no means. But, there is certainly progress going on. This is still a very young defense and when you play at the tempo and style that our offense does, the other team is going to have a lot of drives and they will run a lot of plays. You can't expect another team to run 75 plays and gain less than 400 yards by any means.

After watching the game again our defensive line is much improved. Their aren't nearly as many holes inside and when there is an opening, the linebackers are doing a better job filling the gap. Our sideline to sideline ability is far greater than in previous years. I'm really impressed in the improvement our defensive tackles have made from last year and I think you saw that in some of the option plays that have been run against us this year, we are making the QB pitch the ball and doing a better job pursuing the ball carries.

I always wonder this after the play (or game), but it seems like we play zone defense in the secondary when we blitz. And if it is not a zone, our corners play 7-9 yards off the line of scrimmage. I could be totally wrong but I always look at where the corners line up and we rarely press. Then I'll see if the LB's blitz. When they do, it seems there are receivers finding open areas (hence the reason I suspect a zone).

Anyone else wondering about this?

That's a good question. I think we indeed play a lot of cover 3 zone, but when we blitz I think we just play very soft in order to try to always keep the play in front of us.

Some interesting stats for our defense:

Points per play: Rank - 75...PTS - .392
Yards per play: Rank - 63...YDS - 5.3
Rushing YDS per attempt - Rank - 86...YDS - 4.7
First half points per game - Rank - 36...PTS - 10.7
Second half points per game - Rank 111...PTS - 19.7

My take away:

1. Our defense is clearly improved, and when adjusted for pace of play, is not very far below average.
2. Depth is clearly an issue. When we have had time to build the type of depth needed to play at the FBS level, we can expect a fairly reliable defense.

I am very pleasantly surprised with the improvement we have seen on this side of the ball this year. They clearly are not great, but I didn't think it would be possible to go from the worst defense in FBS, to just not that good in one year. So far, it appears that I am wrong.

(09-22-2014 07:03 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Some interesting stats for our defense:

Points per play: Rank - 75...PTS - .392
Yards per play: Rank - 63...YDS - 5.3
Rushing YDS per attempt - Rank - 86...YDS - 4.7
First half points per game - Rank - 36...PTS - 10.7
Second half points per game - Rank 111...PTS - 19.7

My take away:

1. Our defense is clearly improved, and when adjusted for pace of play, is not very far below average.
2. Depth is clearly an issue. When we have had time to build the type of depth needed to play at the FBS level, we can expect a fairly reliable defense.

I am very pleasantly surprised with the improvement we have seen on this side of the ball this year. They clearly are not great, but I didn't think it would be possible to go from the worst defense in FBS, to just not that good in one year. So far, it appears that I am wrong.

Not to dampen the enthusiasm, but we need to do better on third and fourth downs, especially in the second half.
Excluding the E. Michigan game, we have given up 10 second half scoring drives. All of them resulted in touchdowns. And that doesn't count the redzone fumbles that we may or may not have forced against Hampton.

I think we clearly play a bend but don't break defense. We have since day one. But what it does is wear down our defense because we give up 5 yards a play and let them drive down the field. I know it is "Monday Morning Quarterbacking", but I wonder if things would be different if we challenged them to throw deep on third down. It's not a high percentage play. Heck, the great TH has overthrown open receivers at times. Maybe we get off the field once or twice instead of giving up the long drive TD on those 10 possessions.

On ESPNs Monday Morning QB article our game was mentioned in the 500 section. Rice had +500 yards against us and lost.