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(10-02-2016 07:14 PM)GhentFan Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-02-2016 05:32 PM)Old Dominion Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-01-2016 09:42 PM)Big Bluezilla Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-01-2016 09:35 PM)ODUsmitty Wrote: [ -> ]Took my son to the game. Couple of random thoughts. Stadium is really nice, and looks to be readily expandable. Home side has chairbacks, visitor side is bleachers. Row width greater than Foreman Field, and was really nice to have and made bleacher sitting more comfortable. Much more food outlets and many more bathrooms....no halftime rush for food and peeing, was very smooth.Tailgate scene was quieter than my Blue Lot experience, but set up well. Saw the Normulance. Students had some party area that looked crowded and active, and alumni also had a nice party going in a pavilion. Fans were mostly to themselves, saw a few drunks, but most were pleasant. The biggest fan issue was an ODU fan in section 128(might have been a player's father) and his wife. He was mouthing off at Charlotte fans all through the first quarter and wife was flipping the bird to anyone with which she found disagreement. He neded up jumping up a few rows to fight with some 20ish kid. Police came, and believe dude was arrested. He may have been drunk or just a jerk, but a total embarrassment to our fanbase.

Defense was GREAT, particularly in 3rd quarter after we gave away the ball on our opening play from scrimmage.

Parking was organized and easy to enter/exit. They do this well and make some money off it - maybe a $10 surcharge at the TED parking decks could solve some financial issues.

Overall a good experience and would make the 4 hour trip again.

Thanks for the report Smitty!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Couple of other observations.
Their campus is absolutely beautiful. Lots of trees, interesting buildings, just beautiful. We will never win a beauty contest against them.
The area from the seating to the concessions is a fairly wide concrete deck. It is completely open and exposed to the elements. I suppose this is deliberate in anticipation of expansion. However, right now there is no escape from the elements.
Student "tailgate" area was an awesome amenity. ODU really needs to do something comparable for the students. One of our group commented on the scale of the buildings- all very, very large
giving the campus a very impressive, stately feel.
Game day atmosphere definitely lacking. They have work to do there.

My take away was this is a very high potential school that we will someday have our hands full with.

Their campus is huge. We don't really have the room to do some very pretty landscaping. (Imagine what our campus would look like if they tried to replicate parts of the Norfolk Botanical Garden on campus!)

A number of the new buildings that will be going up over the next 10-15 years are going to be much taller. If you look at the master plan, you can sort of figure out how tall the buildings will be due to a larger sq ft on a roughly the same foot print of existing buildings.

It'd be interesting to see what ODU has in store for future tailgating layout. Lots of current parking lots will be going away. Makes me wonder if they will open up Kauffman Mall for this purpose once everything is built.

Isn't there a height restriction for buildings on campus? Or was that just a decision from some of our officials? With the limited room that we have I almost feel like a lot of our buildings are being retrofitted which results in interesting sizes and shapes. I guess that's what happens when we're in the middle of a city with dense neighborhoods and have almost no room to expand, and Charlotte has a good amount of room around them if they ever wanted to branch out

It always amazes me how small Tidewater leaders think. Charlotte already has a light rail station built beside campus. Of course its beautiful. Point being we can't move forward on an extension to Town Center without an uproar while other cities are lapping us in services.

I don't know Charlotte politics, but I'd be willing to bet they don't have 7 cities needing to work together (not making excuses; I hate how backwards we are). I bet they didn't have a Kellam, who couldn't stand the thought of a metropolitan Norfolk. They didn't have leadership who turned down the opportunity to build a regional hub airport (that went to Charlotte).

Yeah, they kick our ass

(10-03-2016 08:17 AM)jumpshooter Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know Charlotte politics, but I'd be willing to bet they don't have 7 cities needing to work together (not making excuses; I hate how backwards we are). I bet they didn't have a Kellam, who couldn't stand the thought of a metropolitan Norfolk. They didn't have leadership who turned down the opportunity to build a regional hub airport (that went to Charlotte).

Having one city and a large surrounding county that realise their further growth and prosperity are tied to each other does make getting things built much easier.

(10-03-2016 08:29 AM)ODU2K1 Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-03-2016 08:17 AM)jumpshooter Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know Charlotte politics, but I'd be willing to bet they don't have 7 cities needing to work together (not making excuses; I hate how backwards we are). I bet they didn't have a Kellam, who couldn't stand the thought of a metropolitan Norfolk. They didn't have leadership who turned down the opportunity to build a regional hub airport (that went to Charlotte).

Having one city and a large surrounding county that realise their further growth and prosperity are tied to each other does make getting things built much easier.

If only the leaders of New Norfolk County could have foreseen this 379 years.

(10-03-2016 07:38 AM)Old Dominion Wrote: [ -> ]It always amazes me how small Tidewater leaders think. Charlotte already has a light rail station built beside campus. Of course its beautiful. Point being we can't move forward on an extension to Town Center without an uproar while other cities are lapping us in services.

I agree with much of what you're saying, however I will add that the approval battle for light rail in Charlotte makes what we are experiencing look like a toothache.

Just a dominant performance against an FBS school on the road. (obviously not the best FBS school)

I thought we would be able to score at will (we did). Their defense is just pathetic and they gave us the ball in great spots.

However, our defense pretty much shut them down completely. They are a much better running team than a passing team, but we were still able to slow down the run and completely shut down their passing game.

They ran the ball 49 times for 178 times (3.6 ypc)
They passed the ball 36 times, completing 18 for 176 yards (4.9 ypa)

I still feel like DW looks shaky at times, but he's now at 11 td and 2 int on the season, which is very impressive. The completion percentage (56%) is a bit low, but he's moving the ball pretty well (7.3 ypa)

Our running game has been a real strength averaging 5 yards per carry.

I'm right there with ya Giles. Those losses were big learning experiences and the O line shut down a bottom FBS team as it should. Assuming we play a game this Saturday we should get another good measuring stick against what is appear to be a avg UMass squad that many predicted to be well below.

Agree about DW. He's not where I'd like to see him yet. Walking out of the stadium Saturday I talked to a man who I won't identify but is intimately familiar with DW. He said his knee is only about 80-85% back to normal, but DW won't admit it publicly.

Charlotte had a UGE,REALLY UGE fullback they direct snapped to over and over. He was a true load and always got + yards. Think they rode him to death. We had trouble stopping him at the line.

(10-03-2016 10:41 AM)Gilesfan Wrote: [ -> ]Just a dominant performance against an FBS school on the road. (obviously not the best FBS school)

I thought we would be able to score at will (we did). Their defense is just pathetic and they gave us the ball in great spots.

However, our defense pretty much shut them down completely. They are a much better running team than a passing team, but we were still able to slow down the run and completely shut down their passing game.

They ran the ball 49 times for 178 times (3.6 ypc)
They passed the ball 36 times, completing 18 for 176 yards (4.9 ypa)

Their actual running was even worse than the stats imply.
Backup QB Hasaan Klugh came in late in the game and ran (for his life) 6 times for 40 yards (6.7/c)

So much for UNCC's "strong power running game" eh?

I was actually impressed with the poise David Washington showed at times during the game. Some of it had to do with the line giving him time, but there were times he was standing straight up and just let it rip. He seems to get more an more confident with every pass he makes. Hopefully he can keep it up.

(10-03-2016 11:24 AM)MonGNARch Wrote: [ -> ]I was actually impressed with the poise David Washington showed at times during the game. Some of it had to do with the line giving him time, but there were times he was standing straight up and just let it rip. He seems to get more an more confident with every pass he makes. Hopefully he can keep it up.

DW looks more comfortable with each game.

Don't forget that Charlotte has gobbled up large tracts of Mecklenberg County over the years. I may be speaking out of turn here, but I think that was one of the driving forces behind the then-small cities of Virginia Beach, South Norfolk and Suffolk merging with Princess Anne, Norfolk and Nansemond counties 50-some years ago, to avoid a situation where Norfolk (city) and Portsmouth could expand.

As such, it's a lot easier for Charlotte to effect a massive regional change than it is Norfolk, which has an equal counterweight in Virginia Beach and significant cities around them to consider.

(10-03-2016 11:21 AM)Old Dominion Wrote: [ -> ]Agree about DW. He's not where I'd like to see him yet. Walking out of the stadium Saturday I talked to a man who I won't identify but is intimately familiar with DW. He said his knee is only about 80-85% back to normal, but DW won't admit it publicly.

Charlotte had a UGE,REALLY UGE fullback they direct snapped to over and over. He was a true load and always got + yards. Think they rode him to death. We had trouble stopping him at the line.

Matt Johnson ran the ball well; 10 times for 61 yards. He plays some QB. It was a smart move to get him in there bc Olsen could not throw the ball a lick. Johnson was at least able to get the ball up the guy a bit.

(10-03-2016 11:24 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-03-2016 10:41 AM)Gilesfan Wrote: [ -> ]Just a dominant performance against an FBS school on the road. (obviously not the best FBS school)

I thought we would be able to score at will (we did). Their defense is just pathetic and they gave us the ball in great spots.

However, our defense pretty much shut them down completely. They are a much better running team than a passing team, but we were still able to slow down the run and completely shut down their passing game.

They ran the ball 49 times for 178 times (3.6 ypc)
They passed the ball 36 times, completing 18 for 176 yards (4.9 ypa)

Their actual running was even worse than the stats imply.
Backup QB Hasaan Klugh came in late in the game and ran (for his life) 6 times for 40 yards (6.7/c)

So much for UNCC's "strong power running game" eh?

So much for them wanting to be a "balanced team, eh?"

(10-03-2016 12:16 PM)Gilesfan Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-03-2016 11:24 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-03-2016 10:41 AM)Gilesfan Wrote: [ -> ]Just a dominant performance against an FBS school on the road. (obviously not the best FBS school)

I thought we would be able to score at will (we did). Their defense is just pathetic and they gave us the ball in great spots.

However, our defense pretty much shut them down completely. They are a much better running team than a passing team, but we were still able to slow down the run and completely shut down their passing game.

They ran the ball 49 times for 178 times (3.6 ypc)
They passed the ball 36 times, completing 18 for 176 yards (4.9 ypa)

Their actual running was even worse than the stats imply.
Backup QB Hasaan Klugh came in late in the game and ran (for his life) 6 times for 40 yards (6.7/c)

So much for UNCC's "strong power running game" eh?

So much for them wanting to be a "balanced team, eh?"

I was quoting their coach as to the balanced attack. Take it up with him.

In any event, this game looked pretty balanced to me. Indeed win or lose the 49ers usually run and pass very close to the same amount of times. Take away Klugh's garbage runs, and Olsen's desperation scrambles , and you have 36 pass attempts, and around 39 designed run attempts. That looks like a pretty balanced gameplan to me.

Is there a highlight reel anywhere? Monarchmedia didnt have any last i checked.

(10-03-2016 12:11 PM)Cyniclone Wrote: [ -> ]Don't forget that Charlotte has gobbled up large tracts of Mecklenberg County over the years. I may be speaking out of turn here, but I think that was one of the driving forces behind the then-small cities of Virginia Beach, South Norfolk and Suffolk merging with Princess Anne, Norfolk and Nansemond counties 50-some years ago, to avoid a situation where Norfolk (city) and Portsmouth could expand.

As such, it's a lot easier for Charlotte to effect a massive regional change than it is Norfolk, which has an equal counterweight in Virginia Beach and significant cities around them to consider.

I think it was more to do with Norfolk than Portsmouth.

We could probably ask some questions, as the City of Norfolk Director of Development and the Assistant Executive Director of the Economic Development Authority is an ODU alum and past President of the ODU Alumni Association.