Scorching Crucible
The Monarchs just finished a three game skid against three very good teams. Good news that they are on a bye week because they need to time to heal and reset. Old Dominion also needs to use this time to figure out their problems on offense. The Monarchs will face Bowling Green State on September 28th in what is hoped to be a “get right” game. In order to turn this season around and go bowling, ODU would have to go 6-3 in the remaining nine games. That is not an easy task to say the least. The other teams on the Monarchs schedule are impressing, which makes ranking them very difficult. The teams at the bottom of these rankings are not bad teams and could easily go bowling this season. However, after three weeks, it is clear some teams are better than others and we have to rank them somewhere. It just goes to show how tough the Monarchs schedule really is and how it looks even tougher as the weeks go on.
1. South Carolina (2-1) – I am opening up these rankings by swapping my first and second teams from my preseason rankings. Virginia Tech may have had the better day against ODU, but South Carolina’s resume is simply better and they have fewer problems than Virginia Tech right now. After surviving the potential upset with ODU, they crushed what was supposed to be a good Kentucky team. Then they went toe-to-toe with No. 16 LSU and probably should have won that game. The consensus is that the referees were not very kind to South Carolina to say the least. Whether South Carolina can reach a bowl game with their very tough SEC schedule is still uncertain, but I like their chances better than I did at the beginning of the season.
2. Virginia Tech (2-1)– The Hokies deserve credit and have a lot of potential but dropping their first game to Vanderbilt stings. After Georgia State beat Vanderbilt, they now have a transitive win over Tech. Virginia Tech is a very good football team, but they also have showed some pretty big weaknesses. Particularly in the running game. In their three weeks they have allowed big runs by Vanderbilt, Marshall, and Old Dominion. I like them to go bowling this year and scare some of the top teams in the ACC but they are not the dark horse CFP team we thought they might be.
3. App. State (2-1) – I am not going to hold their loss to Clemson against them. Clemson is a top ACC program that was pissed off after losing to another top program, No. 1 Georgia. They proved their resilience by traveling to East Carolina and coming away with the win despite being unable to run the ball on the Pirates incredible defensive line. They did pass the ball very well though and sneaked out the W.
4. Texas State (2-1) – Texas State looks pretty dang good on offense. P4 team Arizona State was lucky to come away with the win against them as TXST coughed up the ball late on two different drives with a fumble and interception respectively. If not for those late turnovers they would have won, impressed, and be higher on these rankings. But as is, they remain at fourth because I still have questions about their defense.
5. Coastal Carolina (3-0)– Very impressive but have they actually played anyone yet? JSU, Temple, and a FCS team is nowhere near the gauntlet that ODU is facing. CCU gets its first real test this week against Virginia, a Power 4 team but a struggling Power 4 team. Will they beat the Hoos like how JMU did last year? Or will they fall and start losing games when their schedule actually heats up? There are other teams I think may jump up in these power rankings but CCU looks like a team that earned this place with a 3-0 start but may come back down to Earth. With ODU on a bye week, I will be watching their game against Virginia pretty closely.
6. Arkansas State (2-1) – I am not moving them up yet, but I have concerns they will not be as good as I thought they would be at the beginning of the season. Sure, Michigan is a tough place to play, but they did not play last year’s Michigan team. The win against Tulsa was a good but they also struggled to put away a FCS team that probably would have beat them if not for a blown call by the refs.
7. East Carolina (2-1)– ODU really should have beaten ECU. They were capable of it, but they just could not execute anything on offense. Giving the Pirates credit, East Carolina’s defense is legit. It is the best defensive line ODU has faced or will face this year. App. State learned that as well when ECU’s defensive line stuffed the Mountaineer rushing offense. But unlike ODU, App. State was able to pass the ball and squeak out the win 21-19. Quarterback Jake Garcia is also throwing way too many interceptions and is boat racing to win the tongue-in-cheek “Ty Detmer Award.” Still, they have shown me enough to make a big jump in these rankings from 11th to 7th. They face a big test with Liberty this week but after that, they will crush their AAC competition to go bowling.
8. Bowling Green (1-1)– What do we make of Bowling Green? They crushed their FCS opponent and then nearly pulled off the upset against Penn State. Had they done so, they would be way higher on this list. Maybe they do deserve to be higher on this list? But could that have been a fluke? They are a little bit of an enigma right now. Well we will see this week. Coming off a bye week they go to No. 25 Texas A&M to face a huge and hostile SEC crowd. They could beat themselves up a bit before hosting Old Dominion the week after. This is a game we will be paying close attention to as well.
9. Georgia Southern (2-1)– Ga. So. lost a shoot out to a good Boise State team. Cannot fault them for that. Then they beat Nevada and a FCS team. I still want more information on them. Nevada is not a very good team and beating a FCS team tells us very little. However JC French looks like a competent quarterback. Maybe they can compete with App. State for the SBC East? Or maybe this is just another early start like last year and they will start losing games when facing Sun Belt teams? We will still not learn this week because they are likely get stomped by No. 5 Ole Miss. Good luck Eagles! Please don’t die!
10. James Madison (2-0)– I was really hard on ODU last year for almost losing to a bad FCS team. I really don’t want to talk about it but you can read about that game here. So it is only fair that I am hard on JMU for doing the same thing this past weekend where they were losing to a FCS team at halftime. The good news is that they did survive 13-6 and won. They also defeated AAC basement-dweller Charlotte in Week 1, so 2-0 is 2-0. But they haven’t played anybody real yet and they have not looked like the amazing team from last year. It is notable seeing JMU fans on twitter calling for their new head coach to be fired already. I don’t think I have ever seen that from them before. JMU certainly has the coaching staff and personnel to move up these rankings very fast and still compete for the SBC East. In fact, I think I still expect them to do that. But right now, with their performance compared to other teams on this list, I have no choice but to place them here after their weak home-opening performance. They travel to Chapel Hill to face UNC this week. If they get the upset or maybe even just cover the spread, they will skyrocket these rankings. If not, then we will just have to wait and see how everyone else performs.
11. Georgia State (2-1) – Whoa there, GSU just beat a SEC team! Shouldn’t they be ranked higher? Especially after what you said about JMU? Well sure, they do move up one place with the big win and could keep moving up if they keep winning. They deserve a lot of credit too because beating Vanderbilt might be the best win the Sun Belt Conference has right now. But Vanderbilt is the SEC basement-dweller team and the game seems rather fluky for me to give them any more movement. They also lost to Georgia Tech and struggled to beat their FCS opponent. Either way, I look forward to see if Georgia State can build off of the win. The Panthers are on a bye week but will face rival Georgia Southern on September 28th. That will tell us a lot more about these two Georgia teams than their out of conference schedule will.
12. Marshall (1-1)– I am not going to call Marshall a bad team just yet. They could go bowling and even beat ODU for what will feel like the millionth time. But I was low on them at the start of the season and I am still low on them with their quarterback issues. Marshall actually had a very similar game against Virginia Tech as ODU did where they struggled to pass the ball, had a few great runs to stay in it, but then flopped hard in the second half as the Hokies pulled away. The main difference between the teams is that ODU’s quarterback was injured against Tech, whereas it is unclear if Marshall has a quarterback on the roster at all. They are coming off a bye week but now have to play No. 3 Ohio State. The spread is very large against them. Good luck Herd! Please don’t die!
Where does this leave ODU?
I purposely do not rank ODU for a couple reasons. For starters, I am biased as an Old Dominion alum and even if I sufficiently counter my bias someone somewhere will be unhappy with where I rank my team. But more importantly, this list is intended to help ODU fans gauge how difficult each game will be compared to another. It is not intended for other team’s fans to see where their team is ranked although I know some fans certainly do that. Another reason, no team is really outside of ODU’s reach. South Carolina for example is ranked number 1 but ODU was beating them in the fourth quarter. I do not want fans to think because I rank a team over ODU that ODU cannot get the upset. They can, it will just be pretty hard.
However, other writers are ranking ODU and not very high. I see many placing ODU near the bottom of the Sun Belt with depleted Troy and a badly coached USM team. It is not hard to see why with ODU struggling on offense and its horrible 0-3 start. ODU is also facing the worst injuries imaginable with Grant Wilson, Jason Henderson, Jalen Butler, Devin Roche, and more sidelined. If forced to play freshmen quarterbacks then the struggles could continue.
But there are still reasons for optimism. ODU’s schedule is about to get easier. ODU faced the best, second best, and seventh best teams in these power rankings. And other teams ranked high (cough, cough, CCU) could fall back down to Earth. The Sun Belt in general looks like it is having a down year compared to last season. ODU also knows what it has to do to turn the season around. The Monarchs must (1) get healthy and (2) fix their offense, primarily passing the ball. And hey! Look at that! A bye week is right here just at the right time to help them do those things. The team is hard at work. It is entirely possible that ODU comes back swinging out of the gate and pops its SBC competition in the mouth.
I am not saying ODU will compete for the SBC East. They have a lot of work to do if they want to do that. All I am saying is that I would not be surprised if ODU comes out of the bye week and upsets a good amount of its peers.