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

Over/under on how long this riveting dialogue continues?

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

(11-26-2013 11:16 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Over/under on how long this riveting dialogue continues?

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

Go back to Monarch Nation then.

I'm good thanks. I think I'll stay a while.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

I definitely disagree with any sentiments that indicate we are "out of the woods" in terms of the transition period. By and large, we are unproven against FBS competition and it shows. Next season is year two of the transition and I expect us to struggle for every win aside from the FCS one. (I assume it will be a win, anyway...Hampton?)

I don't know the extenuating circumstances surrounding the UNC loss, so I won't dish on that any more. I'm just confident that, in time, we will manage a respectable in-conference record; if OOC works out just right we might make a bowl game in 2015.

(11-26-2013 11:17 PM)Sirloin Burger Wrote:  

(11-26-2013 11:16 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Over/under on how long this riveting dialogue continues?

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

Go back to Monarch Nation then.

Thanksgiving is in two days. Shouldn't you be hiding and keeping quiet?

(11-26-2013 11:40 PM)Monarch_Pride Wrote:  Thanksgiving is in two days. Shouldn't you be hiding and keeping quiet?

lol, ODU just suffered a humiliating loss to a team that the Hokies routinely beat and you want to crack jokes? Cute

What would drive someone to masquerade as an ODU fan for so long? Especially if one has an assumed Engineering degree from a Top 25 school and has a superior, BCS football team (though thug laden)? Why? Why? Why?

Because sirlion loves to put odu down and be negative on the boards. He has no other life outside of the odu boards. But we all know vt is far more superior then any other school or program. I hear that vt is eligiible for the bcs title game of dreams?

Odu is having a rough time all the way around. And you are over here to make sure vt success is noted. Please go back to the vt boards and leave odu alone. We get you hate everything odu all coaches and players. Are you actually a jmu fan? If not your negativity could pass for one

(11-27-2013 03:02 AM)lovinodu Wrote:  Because sirlion loves to put odu down and be negative on the boards. He has no other life outside of the odu boards. But we all know vt is far more superior then any other school or program. I hear that vt is eligiible for the bcs title game of dreams?

Odu is having a rough time all the way around. And you are over here to make sure vt success is noted. Please go back to the vt boards and leave odu alone. We get you hate everything odu all coaches and players. Are you actually a jmu fan? If not your negativity could pass for one

It doesn't hate all ODU coaches, just the good ones. It was a big fan of BT.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

My unsolicited two cents:

No one was bothered by our losses to ECU or Pitt. We hung with them most of the game and we were a couple breaks short of pulling off some signature wins. I think everyone agrees with that and we can go back through the boards to find the discussion.
UMD beat us pretty badly. UNC is not any better than ECU, Pitt and even UMD. In fact they're all about the same level and hell - ECU beat the Heels. We hung with UNC for a quarter.

I think the toll of a transition season with nothing to play for, injuries, kids getting kicked off the team and the grind of it caught up to our guys. We collectively shut down and stopped caring. We are not that far behind UNC as far as talent and ability. At least not 60 pts and a shortened game behind. If we were that far behind and this was some kind of wake up call to our program and where we fit in, we would have seen this play out against ECU, Pitt and the Terps.

Bottom line is that it was a one in a million occurance and I would bet any amount of anything that we never see it again. Overall we are still doing fine.

As far as the fans that choose to live in "reality" (anyone I've ever known to say that is just trying to find a different way of saying I'm a negative person and I react to things that don't go my way by tearing down other peoples efforts), you'll be okay too. We're still a better program than most of our instate rivals and we're still slowly chipping away at Tech and UVA. These same fans couldn't play for odu (even if they had the talent) bc they don't mesh with BWs style of PMA or aiming high. They consistently exhibit "conduct unbecoming of a Monarch" and would be suspended until they got their sh_t straight.

I just say I agree with everything said by madz. But I want to point out the amount of time we had to prepare for ecu. We had all summer to watch tape and prepare a playbook for that game. Or do our homework individually. And then as a team. Also with pitt we had all season plus 2 weeks to do the same.I know school and life was in there too.

I've never played but do you think us having extra time to prepare maybe gave us inflated view points? I'm not being negative. Unc was the only one we played right after another team even if it was campbell.

Our team did well all season and I've thought about the timing a ton. I just don't know.

(11-27-2013 09:37 AM)lovinodu Wrote:  I just say I agree with everything said by madz. But I want to point out the amount of time we had to prepare for ecu. We had all summer to watch tape and prepare a playbook for that game. Or do our homework individually. And then as a team. Also with pitt we had all season plus 2 weeks to do the same.I know school and life was in there too.

I've never played but do you think us having extra time to prepare maybe gave us inflated view points? I'm not being negative. Unc was the only one we played right after another team even if it was campbell.

Our team did well all season and I've thought about the timing a ton. I just don't know.

Football is, about matchups and schemes. That is why the "transitive" property (X beats Y by 40, we beat X by 40 therefore we are better than Y by 80) doesn't usually apply.
A great example is ODU vs the Triple Option vs otherwise lesser teams that are used to playing against it .

Most teams go through changes during a season. Think back to 2011 when we played UMass, and what we played like before and after Heinicke.

Let's start with ECU. As you noted we had a long time to prepare for ECU. That certainly helped. The ECU offensive scheme was similar enough to ours that our defense was not surprised. At the time, ECU was not set with it's defense. It got much better as the season went on. The ECU defense played us straight up, in other words no prevent.
We did well. ECU is a much better team now than the one we played, however.

Unfortunately, we did not get better over the course of the season; due in large part to injury (and suspensions) on both sides of the ball, but also due, IMO to lack of evolution of our offense.

We went to Maryland.
HC Randy Edsall chose to design a defense specifically for us (as did NSU and Liberty) and specifically to address our strengths. He changed his scheme (dime, drop 7) and personnel even to go as far as removing the Nose Guard position and changing out the DEs (improve pass rush) just for us. In his own words he chose to completely ignore our run game. Additionally, we didn't match up well against their DBs anyway.

Off to Pitt.
We played better statistically than against UMD, however, IMO, not as well as some think. Pitt chose, like ECU, not to specifically design a defense for us. Pitt decided to use it's tall Dline to pressure Heinicke. Indeed we saw batted balls and incomplete passes because of vision. There were two interceptions inexplicably dropped by Pitt defenders, and TH's QBR was his 3rd lowest(UNC, UMD) of the year. We only scored four more points on Pitt than we did on UNC. Additionally, Pitt's best WR was out with injury; and I believe that we played against their #2 RB? In any event had Pitt's offense been at full strength, the outcome might have been similar to that of UNC.

UNC...where to start.
North Carolina's offense evolved dramatically over the course of the season. By the time we saw them they were damn good, by any standard.
UNC initially chose to play us straight up, but after the first quarter, they adjusted and started dropping their DBs. Additionally, their pass rush was overwhelming our Born-less OLine so they could afford to do so. Further, our defensive scheme, with virtually a 2 man rush(cover 2 notwithstanding), seemed to be primarily designed to contain the running of a dual threat QB, which he was, and not so much the pass. However, by the end of the 2nd quarter we should have adjusted and at least tried to stop being carved up with the pass. I am not sure why we didn't. (Injuries?)
UNC is now a very good team. We likely would have shown much better had we played them earlier in the season.

We will be better next season, if for no other reason than just better athletes. If the Oline can be adequately rebuilt, maybe a lot better. If not we may be in for some tough times.

You aren't being negative, just realistic.

Match ups are certainly important as is motivation. UNC was playing for a bowl bid. Football is an emotional game and the motivational edge can be very real. See UNC vs ECU, who they thought they could just beat without showing up (similar to us vs NSU, Campbell, Citadel). I will just use NSU as an example, it was right after a game at Pitt where we hung tough and has a chance to win. Very defeating. Then play a lowly FcS school....however,, that school had everything to play for and were a much more motivated side.

(11-27-2013 12:11 PM)Gilesfan Wrote:  Match ups are certainly important as is motivation. UNC was playing for a bowl bid. Football is an emotional game and the motivational edge can be very real. See UNC vs ECU, who they thought they could just beat without showing up (similar to us vs NSU, Campbell, Citadel). I will just use NSU as an example, it was right after a game at Pitt where we hung tough and has a chance to win. Very defeating. Then play a lowly FcS school....however,, that school had everything to play for and were a much more motivated side.

Although motivation is a very real aspect of the game, I completely disagree on some points.

Our offense played it guts out vs The Citadel, we have never been able to stop the TO, from Cal Poly until today. There was no motivational issue there.

There may have been some let down vs NSU, however, it still used exactly proper scheme to stop us; to the point where the announcers were screaming in exasperation "Why won't ODU run??!" I am not buying this but even if somewhat true, we made no adjustments to try and counter. Good teams adjust.

It seems to be to the point of sublime that we could not be motivated for UNC. If we weren't, we need to reevaluate our preparation. We in fact came out OK vs UNC, but it made major adjustments after the first quarter, something we seem not to do most of the time.

The only lethargic performance I saw all year (other than the last quarter of UNC) was vs Campbell.

Edit: despite the 300 yards passing, we were never really in that Pitt game. Their DBs made easy mistakes, and the Panthers could have started passing and destroyed us anytime they wanted to, IMO.

Never said we weren't motivated vs UNC. But when the better tam is motivated and at home, it's not going to matter how motivated the visiting team may be.

I'm not going to continue arguing the point about the defense played against us as I've do e so way too many times. There are only so many defenses that you can play and several other teams have played the same ways NSU did against us. What it comes down to is execution and we have destroyed other teams that have played the same defensive looks as Norfolk State. Heck, our offense even played well vs NSU. 465 yards on 79 plays. The ball control made it seem like NSU was stopping us, we punted twice and had 1 int., scored on 6 of 11 drives and missed a FG on one of the other 4.

(11-27-2013 12:35 PM)Gilesfan Wrote:  Never said we weren't motivated vs UNC. But when the better tam is motivated and at home, it's not going to matter how motivated the visiting team may be.

I'm not going to continue arguing the point about the defense played against us as I've do e so way too many times. There are only so many defenses that you can play and several other teams have played the same ways NSU did against us. What it comes down to is execution and we have destroyed other teams that have played the same defensive looks as Norfolk State. Heck, our offense even played well vs NSU. 465 yards on 79 plays. The ball control made it seem like NSU was stopping us, we punted twice and had 1 int., scored on 6 of 11 drives and missed a FG on one of the other 4.

As I have said many times, yards between the twenties are almost irrelevant. The prevents employed against us are designed to be soft but not give up the big play. Half of the coverage under/with the receivers and half deep. When in the red zone the field is compressed, and thus we cannot score because no one is open at any depth, except for FGs if we are so inclined.
Granted the opponent needs the DB personnel to be effective, especially such that we don't or can't outrun the coverage outside of the red zone. Dropping 7 or 8 short/deep works against pretty well against a pass only spread, especially in a short field as it effectively amounts to doubling most or all of the WRs.

Additionally, who else used the set against us that we destroyed? Not Howard nor Albany. Not Campbell (although it was so overwhelmed it was hard to tell and my seats don't give me a good overhead view). Not even the Citadel. I only remember it being employed one other time before this season, and that was the 3-8 that Villanova used against us last year. In fact, like UNC, 'Nova adjusted, changing it's 3-3-5 to a true 3-8 after our initial successes. How did that work for us?