The fellas discuss ODU football's crushing 49 to 17 win over Georgia Southern and preview the trip to Boone to play Appalachian State next week.

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Monarch Nation, welcome to the show.

We are back in the lab, ready to talk some Old Dominion football on a victory Friday.

Uh, Old Dominion Beach, Georgia Southern, 47 to 19.

We're all happy.

We're all ecstatic.

But first, how are y'all feeling today, fellas?

Awesome.

One word.

Awesome.

I'll second that.

Awesome.

Awesome night last night.

All right.

So a common theme we've had this season is talking about how good this

defense is, but also we need to use the middle of the field on offense.

And boy, did we exploit that to the T last night again and again and again, just

crushing Georgia Southern over the middle.

I do not know why they didn't add a third middle safety once in the game to adjust

to what we were doing, but I'm happy.

They did not a phenomenal effort last night.

All around defense played lights out offense played lights out.

Uh, I think all Monarch fans are just on cloud nine right now.

I mean, we needed a game like that so badly for this fan base, just a no sweat.

Let someone come into Ballard and get the kicked out of them.

And that's exactly what we did on national TV, by the way.

I've never seen that many receivers running open downfield before in an ODU

game since maybe the high Yankee days.

Is there something above Cloud 9?

Because if there is, I think that's where most of Monarch Nation is right now.

It was stupid crazy last night.

I think the word we're looking for is catharsis.

That was a very cathartic game for Old Dominion.

I mean, they showed the graphic during the game, I watched the replay.

They showed the graphic of our, how many one score games we've

been in the last two seasons.

10 and 11 says Old Dominion leads the country in one score games.

Um, and finally we're on the right side of a blowout for

the first time in a long time.

And it's because we finally connected through the air.

Um, there was a couple of plays I really, really did enjoy last night.

Obviously we all loved the jump pass, the Tebow jump pass, but the, uh, RPO play

action, uh, touchdown pass to Pat Conroy.

If you go back and rewatch that, he motioned like he was

going to block for the runner.

We fake the run.

He bolts through the line on the a gap he's left wide open and

just nothing in front of him.

A beautifully drawn out play and very well executed.

I, I'm going to probably watch that play like 10 times this weekend,

just because of how much I loved it.

It was super clear to see that Colton is getting more comfortable.

He didn't rush those plays.

There are a handful of those plays that he just let them develop.

He was patient.

They weren't necessarily perfect, but he was patient enough and he got

the ball where he needed to go and they were beautiful and they worked,

I mean, just over and over and over.

It wasn't one punch to the face, it was just like repeated jabs

and then an occasional right hook.

We, I mean, I can't remember the last time that we had a game like that.

The offensive line played exceptionally well last night.

They've improved.

I think every game since Bowling Green and they've had some injuries,

you know, Elijah Hoskins goes down.

Santana Saunders was not there last night.

Skyler Grant gets plugged in at guard.

And I mean, they were manhandling a big defensive front for Georgia Southern.

I think it was 57.

He's got to be every bit of 350 pounds and Skyler Grant and Flores were just

throwing them around like it was nothing.

Uh, you can do a lot of fun things in this offense when

the line is blocking like that.

And we had them on their heels.

They didn't know it was run if it was passed where it was going.

I think that's the most unpredictable our offense has been all year

and we we emptied the tank and it paid off in a big, big way.

And you're talking about being unpredictable.

I mean, we passed the ball for just over 300 yards and we run

the ball for 256 net yards.

I mean, it's just constantly not knowing where it's coming from.

And just when you you think that you're gonna get it run down your throat, they

run something and they throw the ball.

I mean, Georgia Southern never seemed to get any sort of balance.

They're constantly just didn't know what was gonna happen.

What was coming next?

Yeah.

Um, a lot of kudos to give out for from last night.

Uh, but early on in the game, it was clear we were trying to establish the run to set

up that pass, and I, we never abandoned that balance, just like you said, Aaron,

uh, it's why we did it on both sides of the on offenses yesterday, 300 yards.

250 rushing, just phenomenal game that, uh, I mean, how, how nice it is

that we were able to play the whole fourth quarter with all backups.

I can't remember the last time we played a backup quarterback for anything

other than injury or lack of execution.

I

mean, we haven't.

We've only won one game by double digits since 2022.

And I, we're going to reference this coastal game for 2022 a lot.

Cause we smashed a lot of the records that had been the high water mark

for coach Ronnie since he got here.

But man, I mean, that broke a 21 game streak without 300 yards passing for ODU.

And we had that basically in the first half.

Um, and then, yeah, Quinn Henicle gets some quality reps in game

against Georgia Southern's first team.

Uh, defense and that pays even more dividends down the road for you.

But I mean, Holden Brown got a snap last night, which was a little

bit of a fire drill, scramble, tossing the bright pink hat.

But man, uh, just everything about last night was, was awesome.

Yeah.

So a couple other things to note, Isaiah page recorded his second

hundred yard receiving game in his career and on seven catches, uh, his

effectiveness all across the field was.

On full display last night.

Um, but most importantly, I think we threw a hitch to him early and how quickly

grant our Colton just looked his way and through it, there was no hesitation.

He was going there from the, from the jump and that lack of

hesitation is kind of what I think led to our more successful passing.

Um, cause you saw like before Colton started, we were kind of

hesitant to make those throws.

overthinking it and it allowed the defense to react.

That wasn't happening last night.

He was looking and throwing and just going.

Uh, it was Mike.

Oh, sorry about that, man.

But it was, it was everything that we've heard, all the anecdotes, all the things

we've, we've heard about Colton over the course of time, what the players

have said and how he plays and, and the nicknames that they have for him.

It's all starting to come together.

We're seeing what we had heard about.

And it can be a lot of fun.

And I think Colton even had a little bit of a regression in the last game, at least

in the passing attack, and he'd made up for it with his feet, made the plays.

We, we beat Texas state, but to see a quarterback come in, have like the

quick spike to playing well, regress a little bit and then go forward again.

Like that's what you want to see after a little bit of

regression in the passing game.

And I mean, There were probably some P4 coaches watching that game last night,

wondering how they missed on Colton, because I mean, he looked like he was

in running for the Heisman last night.

It was unbelievable.

Well, how many times did the commentators talk about how he was overlooked?

You know, his only offers were army or Navy or air force.

I'm thinking right now, those offers sound pretty damn good if you're

looking at what army Navy's doing.

Uh, but we're, yeah, obviously we're very fortunate to have Colton and.

The game is starting to come to them.

Yeah.

We've talked a lot about the offense, but, uh, how about the defense last night?

They didn't have to be on the field very much, but whatever we have figured out

in the secondary for disguising coverage, invading quarterbacks into throwing picks.

I, we haven't had a bad defense with Blake Sauer here.

You know, we've, we've always been above average or better, but they have stepped

into a completely different realm the last couple of weeks against some of the

better offering offenses in the country.

And I mean, Will Jones last night just perfectly baited a

guy into throwing interception.

They thought he was dropping in coverage.

He took half step back, came forward, the balls in the air picked off.

I mean, just the defense eight last night at every single level,

but that secondary is doing something really special this year.

Yeah, I think, um, I mean, it shows you, we talked about time of possession

for the last two seasons, right?

I mean, on this show, um, last night, we clearly came out strong.

We dominated time position in the first quarter.

I think it was like 11 minutes to two and some change.

Um, but that ability for the defense to rest after they forced three and

outs or They fought like it's just so valuable and it helps the defense.

And if they had their, one of their best games ever last night, and it's

because of that balance and being able to use the iPads on the sideline.

Now, if you give them more time on the sideline, they can look and diagnose

and see things that went wrong.

I mean, when the game was still in any kind of contention, they only got busted

on one play and it was a funky screen.

It was a good play call.

They executed it well.

Kind of created a tunnel screen on a slant route and it went for a touchdown.

But outside of that, in like meaningful playing time, aside from, for whatever

reason, calling a flea flicker and putting a trick play on film down 44 to seven.

I mean, the, the defense just gave nothing.

You might get a first down and woohoo, you celebrate and then

you're putting three plays later.

This team is dangerous.

Dangerous, very dangerous.

And, uh, what's up to you too, justice.

And Garrett, obviously, it was a lot of fun last night.

That middle of the field was, was big time.

Um, I still can't get over how balanced we were last night,

and it's running the ball.

I mean, Aaron Young with 77 yards, Colton with 77 yards, Bryce with 59 yards.

I mean, these guys averaged 5.

5, 8, 8.

6, 8.

4.

It was just like, no matter, it was just one shot after another.

It doesn't, I can't get much better than that.

No, it's a, it's a whole, we see games where we make the wrong call

and things might go a little haywire or maybe a couple of things go right.

And then you get that holding penalty that stalls you out.

But last night we were just pushing all of the right buttons at the right time,

and it results in the best win in a decade for ultimate in football at home.

On an important night, national television, uh, everyone is watching

cause there's only two, one other game on.

And we took that opportunity and did the best with it.

It's it's amazing.

Not only on national television, but it was a high stakes game for

both those teams, the team that won that game puts themselves in the

driver's spot for the conference.

I mean, obviously there's a ton of football left.

The season, the winner of that game controls its destiny.

We have not been in that sort of position in a very long time.

And these guys seize the moment and just, they took it from the

very beginning and they never,

they obviously did not let it, uh, out of their type type death group.

I don't know what the hell I'm saying.

I'm still excited.

So, I mean, we kind of, we were in that position last year and didn't realize it.

Right?

Because if we beat Coastal or beat JMU, it was just too early in the

process to realize that we had a chance for a conference championship.

But now we know where this is real and we took full advantage last night and Colton

Joseph is a star that everyone knows.

Huge

shout out to the coaching staff and all the other support staff that's

involved in putting that game together.

They basically lost two days of prep and we somehow look substantially

better playing on Thursday night.

And that is not easy to do, to get 115 guys to all go in the right direction

after maybe feeling a little bit overconfident after beating Texas state,

getting a little winning streak going.

They weren't, they were focused every time they hit the field.

It was like they, they needed to win this drive to win the game.

Uh, it was, it was just great to see that, but also on offense, like coach Decker,

I think has found the balance between how to trap the defense on the field and

go quickly, but also control the clock.

So we still weren't huddling.

We weren't giving the defense time to sub.

We were going to the line, putting them in position, and then we would sit back.

And I know that helmet communication going to Colton was probably going nuts.

Then it cuts off at 15 and they would stop again and go

to the sideline for the signs.

So we're able to take 30, 35 seconds off the clock, but not

let the defense do anything.

We basically get 30 seconds to study the defense and then go attack it.

And I think that is the biggest factor in us controlling the clock last

night, keeping the defense off the field, and just executing good plays

of finding a tempo that's fast, but still very accurate and effective.

And they did that with perfection last night.

So kudos to the coaching staff, uh, especially on the

offensive side of the ball.

And, uh, to even add more to that, we were making it easy for Colton to have a night.

Cause a lot of those throws were easy throws to be made just because of how

the plays were drawn up and there's no one in the area cause it's wide

open and right in front of your face.

You're right.

And the important thing is he hit those passes very, very early on a couple

of games ago, those, those passes might've been a little long or at the

feet, but last night he was pretty darn good with, with hitting those.

And he made a couple of really nice passes as well.

Very early in the game last night, he missed a Conroy throw that would

have probably been, went to the house, but the beauty of it is he just.

Collected himself and focused and kept his feet balanced on his throws remaining

in the game and didn't miss many moving forward instead of what 20 or 26.

Uh, just 26 or 27.

Yeah.

Just 20 and 26.

I mean, what a phenomenal, phenomenal game overall with zero interceptions as well.

And I don't remember seeing a single drop.

So credit to all the receivers for doing their job.

Cause I mean, we all, we all have seen it over the years.

It's it's not those easy passes aren't always easy to catch.

Hardest pass to catch is the one when you're wide open and can run for a

touchdown, because all you can do, you're trying to move your feet and

clap your hands at the same time.

Uh, I think Colton in the red zone was also really, really good.

I think a couple of his incompletions came in the red zone, but they were balls

thrown on like corner routes or fades to where your receiver is going to catch it.

Or it's going to go out of bounds and let's go back and try again.

I think.

We've seen some turnovers in the red zone historically where we rush a bad pass.

We try to just fit something through a tiny window over the middle.

Uh, but just making smart decisions in the red zone.

I know at halftime, I think we were what, five for five in the red zone

or shortly into the third quarter.

Yeah, you're not kidding.

They put that graphic up on the board and I think we were losing it.

I mean, on one side you had ODU and we were either four for

four or four or five of five.

I can't remember in the red zone with that.

four touchdowns and a field goal at Georgia Southern was zero, just

straight zeros all the way down.

I certainly can't remember.

I don't know if that's ever happened.

Um, since 2009.

But, um, yeah, I mean, Alex, you're Alec.

You're absolutely right.

We own that game from kickoff to end and Eva.

We agree.

Being able to chill in the fourth quarter was a nice feeling.

We've joked with each other that we single handedly or not we, but

ultimately in football single handedly put out, put some cardiologists

out of business this week because we're all able to just kind of enjoy

a lot of that game and not be super stressed out.

Um, I want to highlight a couple moments.

There was two plays that I'm remembering where Colton gets

flushed out of the pocket and he's trying to make a play on his feet.

One, he finds peanut Houston.

The other, he finds Patrick Conroy to extend the drive.

And obviously for these receivers, they know if they keep their heads up and they

keep moving, they can still make a play.

Even if the line, the line, is losing that battle on that snap.

And that's going to be so big for our offense.

These receivers know, Hey, I just keep playing.

I'm going to have a chance to make a big play here.

And both in both instances, peanut makes it a big play.

And so is Conroy.

Um, and that's just the dynamic that colds bring into this offense.

It's just so fun to watch because a play is never dead with this kid.

Yeah.

You can tell those guys have been working on the scramble drill and practice.

Cause you could see when things did break down, you see them run their route

and they look back to see where Colton is rolling to, and they start rolling

to that side of the field and they're losing guys in coverage left and right.

Uh, I thought peanut ran some amazing routes last night.

I think it was the second touchdown catch.

He kind of ran that in route right along the backside of the end zone.

And that was.

Just perfect.

Ran the route to perfection.

Was right there, basically at the goalpost.

Colton hit him pretty easily right over the middle.

Uh, but I think Colton's best play of the game actually came later.

I think the game was out of reach, but it was the cherry on top of a

nearly perfect offensive performance.

And that was his rushing touchdown.

We were clearly in in some kind of run there.

We wanted to move some clock and Georgia Southern with about maybe 1517 on the

play clock brought that corner back in to basically right on the end of the line.

That move should have blown up that play.

It should have, but Colton the postgame press conference.

He knew that he was hot on that.

He saw the cornerback there, looked right at him.

He sold the handoff on the read option so well, had his back to

that side of the field and spun out and just took off down the field.

And by the time the cornerback figured it out, Colton's five yards downfield

splitting the safeties into the end zone.

I mean, that's one of those plays like you see it develop and you're

like, Oh crap, this thing is going to get dropped in the backfield.

Colton's going to get smashed or, you know, it's going to be

a one yard run up the middle.

But for him to see that, recognize it, know we need to really sell that handoff,

and then go for touchdown, like, that is him being super, super comfortable,

uh, there running that offense, and understanding it, understanding the

defense, just full of confidence, and he was strutting his way into the endzone.

I know Justice had a pretty good video, uh, you know, damn

it feels good to be a gangster.

I'm sure that's exactly what he was thinking, rolling into the endzone.

All right.

I want to go back to this offensive line because we've seen a lot of

injuries on the line so far this season.

I mean, you got Santana who's down right now.

You got Hoskins who's down right now.

Again, next man up mentality is at full effect on this offensive line.

Skylar Grant comes in and another smooth performance for the O line.

Obviously, Colton's feet are helping a lot with us being able to do this.

But, I mean, You can't be upset with anything last night other than

maybe some special teams issues.

And there weren't a ton of those.

Well, uh, yeah, they're kind of work.

I'm so, I'm so happy that things are just being iced over.

We did have some issues punting the ball.

We had some issues with some snaps.

Fortunately, you know, you can learn and grow in an ass whooping of another team.

You know, so they weren't overall, they, you know, they didn't

change the course of the game.

Those are things obviously in the next eight days that the team

will work on to get better in.

But uh, it's wonderful to be able to learn in that sort of situation.

I'm excited to have a little extra time because When Ricky has

extra time, he seems to deliver.

So I know it's only two days, but still, it's we'll get there.

We'll get.

All right.

All right.

So what?

Well, I was going to say, so we know that this coaching staff does really

well after a bye week, and now they do really well in a short week.

Should we just play on like Thursdays and then have bye weeks every other?

Because if they need less time and more time, I mean, that seems

to be the magic trick for us.

Give Bruce Stewart a call up and see if he can manipulate this on it.

Um, yeah,

maybe, maybe we play thursday, saturday, thursday, saturday,

thursday, saturday, all season long.

If we keep winning, we might have that schedule next year anyways, because

you're going to play more midweeks if you, if you're very good, right?

Better than playing on a Wednesday at Kennesaw State.

Well, not if you're Kennesaw State, if you're that other team,

you don't want to be doing it.

Yeah, double field storming Wednesday night was very fun to see.

All right.

Um, yeah, last time was so much fun.

Um, I don't know why everyone left early.

I guess Friday's a work day, but that place was empty in the fourth quarter.

That happened once we sealed the game against Texas State, too.

People started rolling out.

Like, I wanted to soak in every moment of that game last night.

It's not guaranteed.

And we should know that better than any other fan base in the country right now.

And that's what is so confusing to me about people leaving early.

I, if you've got to go back to Nova Richmond, I get it, but.

For us, you got young kids.

I get, I get that too.

No school night, but if you're a grown ass men like us, come on man,

stick around for the extra 20 minutes.

Yeah, it's not guaranteed because we've seen how long it took to get back

to this point to being competitive.

It's been a long road to be here to get here.

We haven't been this competitive since 2016.

I mean, last year we were competitive, but you know, uh, That's a long time, man.

Why are you leaving early?

Soak it in.

Enjoy the moment.

Because you don't know what's going to happen the rest of the season.

I mean, we've suffered a lot as a fan base over the last, like, seven or eight years.

Through bad seasons, bad games, blown leads.

Like, you suffer through that so you can go and enjoy the moments like last

night and Saturday against Texas State.

So, I don't get it.

And plus, you missed one of the best moments of the night if you did not stay.

Through the two minute timeout in the fourth quarter, because Isaiah page

got lifted up by a bunch of offensive linemen for the Simba cam and it

didn't get shown on the video board.

I don't know.

I know Brian Parsons from wavy got video of it.

I got video of it from the stands, but it was funny.

They held him up there for like 90 seconds of the TV timeout.

And you could just tell those guys were having a blast on the

sideline and it's nice to see them happy after a game and not like.

stressed and worried and thinking, Oh crap, practice is

really going to suck tomorrow.

No, they get to, they get to go enjoy a couple of days and then get

right back at it to go to App State.

But it was, it was a party at Ballard, like from the middle of the third

quarter through the end of the game.

And it was so much fun.

And, uh, speaking of in game entertainment.

Bring back the Chug Cam.

That was great.

We need more of that.

I'm hoping that dude Scotch guarded his shirt though, because a whole hell of a

lot of it did not make it down inside.

He had to do some explaining when he got home, I'm sure,

but it was probably worthwhile.

I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it on the video board.

Honey, why do you smell so much like beer?

Oh, Gary spilled it on me.

I wasn't drinking.

Honey, you smell like a brewery.

What's going on?

I was speaking of breweries.

It was great to see Josh from afterglow before the game yesterday.

Yeah.

Um, always fun seeing those, those guys.

Um,

Alex.

Oh yes, students killin it every game.

And the beauty of this, that moment last night of us kicking their ass,

we're, we got to be creating more fans for the future with the season.

We gave them a great show.

They left happy.

Um, this is how you create fans with games like that.

Absolutely.

And we had a comment a few minutes ago from Jay Reynolds.

He was talking about, it's great to finally bring some friends to the

game and have that kind of experience.

So Bring those friends back, get them to buy season tickets.

That's how we grow the fan base.

And there are a lot of tickets for the JMU game on the secondary market

that are really cheap right now.

And as we get closer to that game, they may get more expensive.

So if you got friends that are coming or you want them to

come, go grab those tickets now.

Don't let them go unused because it's sold out through the normal

like first market channels.

Go get those tickets now.

Bring a couple of your friends at JMU game, because I think that's

going to be a very fun game for us.

Yeah.

Um, sorry.

I'm looking up TFLs from last night.

I was about to check my work from when I heard that.

I know.

I heard that dog.

That's the TFL.

Dong.

Don't say dong too many times.

Oh, we've got explicit lyrics.

It's okay.

We're going to start popping up in different algorithms.

You keep that up.

All right.

Does anyone have the total TFLs for last night?

I, I, I don't.

I gotcha.

It was one, one tackle for a loss and a split between Seth and EJ.

And that's because the defense weren't on the field enough.

That right there is a future trivia question.

You see a score like this, a defensive performance like this, and you're go,

Oh, they had, they had more than one.

There's like five.

They had like, yeah, seven.

Angelo Rankin forced more fumbles than we had tackles for a loss because

he forced two fumbles last night.

That's when they should have used that damn video last night

instead of the mixed extra point.

I really liked that they used that for the mixed extra point.

But that was the first time an ODU player had two forced fumbles since 2018.

And that was O'Shane Zemanes against VMI in that blowout

game where we closed Ballard.

I hear that right.

Ximena's guy was pretty good too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I've heard.

He did do it two other times in his career.

So

pretty damn good player.

Not bad.

He should have played in the league.

Right.

Should have.

Um, yeah, I'm just, I don't know.

I want to just, I don't want next week to come because it's because of how

good this moment feels and how good yesterday felt, but I can't wait to

watch this team back to field again and see if they can build on this and just.

Keep putting Sunbelt on notice.

Before we do that, Mike, we probably want to do a couple of things.

One thing, talk a little bit about the before game stuff.

The other thing is maybe take a super fast break for the pride.

I mean, if you guys are done talking about last night, sure.

We can talk about last night forever.

18s flew down Kaufman mall.

That's when I knew the game was over last night.

Dude, the vibes on campus pregame were immaculate.

We saw so many friends of the podcast yesterday that it's going to be hard to

name them all, but it's just so cool.

The community we're building and.

The people we've come in contact with over the years through this podcast.

And it just made yesterday even more special than it was.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, I mean, there, there was, I don't even know.

It was, it was awesome.

I'm still, I'm still so shocked that I got handed a beer from the Czech

Republic yesterday after having just got back from the Czech Republic and

drinking that same beer too much of it.

Um, so what was your stomach's reaction when you saw that beer?

Well, I immediately texted my wife and I got cool emojis because you guys know that

in my family, my wife is the, uh, I'm the little girl when it comes to drinking.

I like shit that's sweet and, you know.

We'd have umbrellas and my wife will take the beer and make me look bad.

So I was actually pretty happy to see it, believe it or not.

By the way, Aaron, you can buy that at total one.

Yeah, I heard in Harris Teeter as well.

Yeah, it's everywhere.

Uh, we got to meet Thomas DeMarco yesterday.

I talked to him for a minute and he told us a really interesting moment.

Uh, he's there hanging out with Polisco and he says, what, I don't know if this

story is true, but he told it to us.

He said when he was being recruited by ODU.

They're like, we got this other guy that is a punter.

We're not sure of how good he is.

So we'd love for you to come in and punt for us.

That other punter happened to be Jonathan Plusco.

So thank goodness that guy's a hall of famer.

So we could have another hall of famer playing quarterback for us.

Great meeting him yesterday.

That was awesome.

Yeah.

Um, uh, we might have to, uh, revisit that conversation at some point with those guys

and let them hash it out for the fans.

Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to, uh, yeah.

All right.

So pregame festivities, drone show.

I don't, did the parachuters ever come or did that get waved off?

They, they got waved off.

So I guess the winds between where they jump at 5, 200 and

like 2000 feet were pretty gnarly.

So they, they did wave it off, um, which I'm not the one jump out of the plane.

So if they're telling me they shouldn't jump, then I kind of

trust their judgment on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Safety is the most important.

Um, FAA teams are really cool.

We barely got to, got to the coffin mall to see that we literally walked up

and it happened, but that was awesome.

Great seeing the military at the march and surrounding the players.

Um, yeah, just history was cool.

The, the ODU military alumni chapter had a tailgate on Kauffman Mall.

That's where I was at for a good bit pre game.

I think they ended up with like 100, 125 people that came out for that.

Plus, you know, all the other military that was there on Kauffman Mall.

And the cool thing about the F 18 flyover, and I've watched it close to,

uh, Quinn Henicle's dad in the bar labs.

Is the players were actually excited about it because normally they don't

see that normally they're still in the locker room and they hear it, but they

don't, they don't get to experience it.

So yesterday, the F 18s waited until coach Ronnie was leading the team across coffin

mall, and he was right about the seal.

The F 18s flew over.

So the players are pretty juiced up, uh, just the whole atmosphere there.

The whole pregame atmosphere was, was pretty incredible.

Like really great job by that staff that puts all of that together and makes

all those crazy things on the field.

Pre game happened.

Um, love integrating the military band into our band for the national anthem.

Just some some amazing things pregame that the drones show was awesome,

but also slightly terrifying.

I think we'll hear more about that in a little bit.

And yeah, and the whole the whole military appreciation thing, which,

you know, being being a veteran, um.

It's great to see, but I would love to see more of that.

Get, get those, get those guys and gals out to the games.

There's no reason why we cannot get more of them to the games.

Cause just like the students, they're probably going to be the

next rowdiest group of folks to be making noise and get into the games.

I will, I think we need to try to grow that partnership.

I will say this.

So what.

On Monday, they had the Ricky Ronnie coaches show from the Eisenhower.

Uh, I went on Twitter, checked it out, Chowda Hill, which is the

commanding officer of the Eisenhower.

It's pretty funny on Twitter, but someone asked him like, Oh, so

are we rooting for them this week?

I'm from Georgia.

So I was thinking Georgia Southern.

And he goes, no, we're running for the hometown team.

We're Monarchs this week, having a guy like him and his whole, if

he can get his boat on our side, how many people, I mean, how many

people are on an aircraft carrier?

Well, right now, since they're pier side and they don't have their, their

carrier air wing, it's, you know, probably a couple of thousand, a lot,

a lot of, and imagine if we had a couple more thousand there last night.

Kind of my angle with it is, um, you've got a lot of, you know, young

men and women who are away from home.

They're by themselves, especially during this time of year, you start

to get closer to the holidays and they don't necessarily have a place to land.

You know, we used to try to take those sailors and we bring them

into our, you know, our homes for Thanksgiving or whatever.

So create this environment where they've got kind of that home away from home.

Who doesn't go to a football game or a basketball game?

I didn't, at least for me, I know I go.

And for that two, three hours, I don't think about a lot of things that are

stressful outside, you know, in your regular life, like that part of the

brain gets turned off and you just get encapsulated into that, you know?

So I would love to see more, more of that.

And really like Ricky says, we don't have to be your number one.

No people coming from all over the country.

We're happy to be the number two for you.

So come out, make some noise.

I mean, from personal experience, I grew up in Hawaii, but the

university of Hawaii would give tickets to military families a lot.

So I grew up rooting for the rainbow warriors.

Because it was really cool.

I could, we could ride the bus.

Me and my sister could go on games on our own.

Cause I mean, you ride the bus downtown, it takes 10 minutes.

It was cool, but it was because of that outreach to the military that we

became fans of them and rooted for them.

Uh, I want to, I want to note something.

Alec Geiss is a.

Talented photographer for Old Dominion, and he's in the chat right now.

I'm excited to see these F 18 pics.

I haven't seen him yet, but wanted to note that while his comment

is on the screen right now.

They were showing a lot of infographics on the scoreboard last night.

When we were in the TV timeouts with like military facts for

Hampton roads and for ODU and like the numbers were really awesome.

I think it was like 5, 000 ODU students had been active duty military.

Uh, but the one that got me is 20 percent of the population in Hampton

roads is affiliated to the military in some way, like active duty,

retired reserve families of military.

I mean, that's 20 percent of a pretty large Metro area.

That's a huge market to go try and capture.

And if you start kind of building that with all right.

People that are a year in the military, two years, three years,

the people that you're talking about, Aaron, that are here by themselves,

they end up staying here long term.

You've created a lifelong fan, just like you would an ODU student

or an alum or someone like that.

So it's making, putting in that hard work now to get them invested.

And I think catering to them quite a bit, like we did last night was, was awesome.

But that's your backup fan base right there.

Like that's your supplementals, uh, for, for these games.

Cause it's, it's a lot of fun.

It's also a recruiting tool for the university because a lot of these

Service members are going to go to college after they get out or

while they're while they're serving.

If they have a connection to ODU like that, the likelihood that

they go to ODU is even higher.

So it just makes sense all around to welcome in the military, treat them

right, and build this fan base up because it's the smartest thing to do.

Yeah.

And I'll give a shout out to Harry McBrien, who is a monarchist key

member in our group and a partner.

He put so much of that last night together, uh, from the flyovers to, uh,

the military alumni chapter tailgate and everything else coordinating.

Uh, he's, he's done a lot of work to get ODU close to the military and

you can, you can see the results.

And also Harry's just awesome.

If you didn't watch the podcast episode last week.

So before we go to break Scott Sawyer's just asked any injuries

last night, the most obvious injury last night was Jalil Colbreath.

Who, uh, after he went to the locker room, I mean, I guess before

he went to the locker room, they brought out a cart for him and he

goes, no, I'm not riding on that.

I'm walking off this field, which shows his toughness, but he walks the locker

and comes back out with his sling.

So we're assuming it's probably a shoulder separation or something like

that, but we're wishing the best for him.

Um, I didn't see any other, uh, notable injuries during the game.

I mean, I think, uh, Devin Roche was limping a little bit and, and

Miles Alston looked like he had something going on with like his,

his right oblique or something, but.

You know, other than my voice and then a handful of livers from, uh,

from some extra at Pilsner's there, I think we seem to come out pretty good.

I mean, obviously a huge win.

And we had we had some major players who didn't play, obviously.

Jason Henderson has been out of Santana was looking sweet on the

sidelines with the shades at night.

I mean, that's that's a great look, by the way.

Um, you know, so, like we said earlier, I don't think last night

could have gone any better, though.

I will say I'm a little concerned about Jalil's injury, given how many injuries

we have in the linebacking room right now.

It's stacking up and, uh, gauge shores did come in and play well in his relief.

But Jalil has been a playmaker all season and not having him on

the field is going to be a loss.

Yeah.

Hopefully, hopefully it's, uh, I mean, I agree with you, Mike, watch it.

It'll come off.

That's just the, uh, the non doctor and me, the web MD kind

of, uh, look, but hopefully it's strain or something like that, but

who knows?

It's probably a multiple game kind of thing.

It looked a lot scarier at first because he went down, everyone was waving for

the training staff and they immediately went and got the air cast back.

That's the bigger red bag that you see come out there.

A lot of times it's like a stretcher or something like that.

Anytime you see that you get a little nervous that there's

like a bad break or something.

Uh, clearly there wasn't, he walked off and he was just in the

sling and his left arm, you know, clearly upset that he got injured.

Uh, but I was happy to see him get up and walk off when I saw that air

cast bag go out at the beginning.

Uh, but let's talk a little bit about the injury situation and just,

The facts of what we know, right?

So Jason Henderson, it came out, was announced that he's going to red shirt

this year, uh, so you can play four regular season games and still red shirt.

He played at South Carolina.

He has not played since we have a bi week before our final

three games of the season.

So I think we can all be hopeful that maybe we see some Jason

Henderson during those three games.

Uh, Jalen Butler, who is someone we've, we had been missing all season, both in run

blocking, but also in the pass catching game, you know, Pat Conroy has done an

amazing job and it's just grown so much.

Uh, but he's going to be in the same boat, but he did not play at South Carolina.

So if, if he ends up taking a red shirt year, he could come back and

play as early as next week at app state and still preserve his year, uh,

conference championship games and bowl games do not count towards your four.

So we don't know if either one of those guys are going

to be back anytime soon, but.

If you were thinking through it from a red shirting standpoint, it's possible

that we could see them and they still don't burn that red shirt here.

All right.

Um, thank you for going over that real quickly, Gary.

I think this is a perfect time for Aaron to play the ad

and let's take a break quick.

I got it.

And as we're going to that ad, hell yeah.

Volleyball up.

And Field Hockey won their game, they clinched their, their, they're

going to the Big East Tournament.

So, way to go Field Hockey.

This episode of the Monarchist Podcast is brought to you by

the Pride of ODU Collective.

Their mission is to elevate the experience of student athletes through

name, image, and likeness, while also elevating the fan experience.

If you or your business are interested in getting involved, You can reach out to

us directly or go over to theprideofodu.

com.

That is theprideofodu.

com.

Thank you for listening and go Monarchs.

All right.

This weekend, Old Dominion football takes the trip to Appalachian state to

play in Boone against the Mountaineers.

What?

Hold on.

Before we move on, we do have some callers.

Do we want to hit them first?

Because they're reacting to this past week.

And some of them are in the chat.

They are.

Um, all right.

I was on a roll there.

I know.

I'm sorry.

I didn't want you.

I didn't want you to get all the way through.

So, I'm going to, I'm going to repitch.

We're back.

We're back.

Alright, monarchs.

After this resounding win over Georgia Southern, we ask fans to call us

in and we got some awesome calls.

We have to start with.

No, wrong logo.

We need to start with the Duke of Discipline.

He is back.

Throw that logo up there.

All right, let's hear Garrick's call.

All right.

Wow, surprised I remember the number.

Uh, sorry, fellas.

Uh, just living on a high over here.

Uh, absolute butt kicking last night.

And, um, want to say probably our best complete game, uh, all around.

Uh, let's clean up that.

Blocked extra point though.

Uh, other than that, I'm just really happy to see this is what happens when

you use the middle of the field uh Just absolutely love it at a high great

atmosphere Uh military appreciation.

Thank you.

Everybody who served our country od.

You did it right last night Uh, let's just make sure we have a better turnout.

Uh, this team is is showing out every week Uh, jmu game Uh, hopefully it's

a night game in my opinion, looking at the schedule looks like it might be.

So let's go, let's keep this train moving and rain on.

Thank you so much for calling in, Garrett.

We're happy to hear from the Duke of Discipline again.

Uh, and you're absolutely right.

Fans need to jump on board now.

It's not too late to be on the bandwagon.

But you're coming around for Marshall.

You're like, all right, I'm ready.

We're going to call it out.

You weren't here for JMU.

Where the hell were you?

Come out, be loud, support this team.

We got an opportunity to do something really cool this season that no

one expected when we were 0 3,

but we're here, we're doing it.

jump on board, have a blast.

This is fun football.

The defense is lights out.

We got a quarterback who's got the Manziel celebration down and he's

just making plays every which way.

So just come out and enjoy the game.

This is, this is what college football is all about.

This is about having fun.

Speaking about having fun in college football, that is a

great segue to our second call.

Hey guys, Justice here.

Friday morning.

Just, I'm so jacked up still from last night.

What an amazingly awesome night.

If folks, if you missed it, as a Monarch fan, shame on you, because it was,

I haven't had this feeling in a long time, but it was just an awesome night.

Yeah, Thursday night, National TV, first place in the Sun Belt, an amazing halftime

drone show that was just spectacular.

And then to top it off.

The Monarchs just play lights out on both sides of the ball, get the wind

and, and, uh, hold the, um, the driver's seat, so to speak, for, for the Sunbelt

East, if they can just keep it up.

But, uh, yeah, awesome night.

Go Monarchs.

Our boy Justice, he hooked us up with the shine last week, the apple pie moonshine.

But I run into Garrick yesterday who hands me a bottle of clear shine.

So I am on a two week streak of getting shine at the tailgates.

I need it to be week three at the GMU game.

So if anyone's out there that has some shine and you're looking to

share it with someone, find your boy.

Cause I need to keep the streak going because we don't know all

the weirdness that's going on.

We have a lot of streaks going on.

Gary keeps doing the post games.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings.

About that, but I respect the streak and I respect the unwritten rule.

We have more unwritten rules than baseball.

You were in the press conference room before the players

were out of it last night.

Like as soon as they stood up, boom, here comes Aaron running in.

How's the press conference?

I'm, I'm out on the field.

This is killing me.

Mike, Mike is laughing because he knows how much I love to be in there.

But, like I said, man, it's only weird if it doesn't work, so I'm out on the field,

you know, slapping hands, high fives and shit, but I've got my AirPods in and

I'm watching, I'm watching the postgame presser from like 20 feet away, and going,

damn, you know, but, um, you said, it's only weird if it doesn't work, right?

And the funny thing about it is, no, Eric Bohan and all those guys know what

the rule is, that they're not gonna see Mike and Aaron again, hopefully.

Uh, For the rest of the season.

I mean, that would be the goal.

Hopefully they don't see us again until like 2027.

Well, does that rule go Pat over seasons or is it, it goes until it ends.

Okay.

We're going to need him to come down to every basketball game too.

Cause if it keeps going between sports as well, someone's going to need to get me

a helicopter coming down from Richmond.

Yeah.

Obviously that's not going to work for Richmond.

Maybe it's only games that Gary's at.

I don't know.

We'll worry about that shit at some point in the future, but right now

I'm not going to mess with that.

Um, so as excited as justice was about the drone show, not everybody was, or

it's going to lead into our next caller.

Uh, Hey guys, this is, uh, CB Wilkins, the co host of the Hudson homers podcast.

I noticed you guys don't ask me to come on and talk about football.

Uh, which is probably smart because my, my football commentary is, uh, as

in depth as sometimes they play good.

And sometimes they should play better, uh, but, you know, I mean, amazing game.

I've been at all of them there on the field level.

It was just, uh, ridiculous.

Just, they came out and punched him in the mouth and just kept punching.

And it was a lot of fun.

Uh, I will say my, my one big gripe from the game, I don't

understand why everyone's so excited about this drone show.

Uh, people were just like, Oh, the drones.

And I was like, I was in the media room at halftime and everybody, Oh, you

got to get there and watch the drones.

And like, I don't look, man, you know, I was like, I walked by the field where

they're all sitting there and it's like, you know, 70, 000 of about how many

drones there were, there were a lot.

Uh, and, and to me, it's just terrifying.

You know, frankly, we got A.

I.

Is taken over.

Let's be real in like five years when Skynet goes live and all these

drones are shooting us from the sky.

It's not going to be cute that one time they spelled out 757 in the sky.

Okay.

That's all I'm saying.

All right.

You guys take care.

Go monarchs.

I'll be back.

I'll note this by the time we have Skynet active.

We're gonna have Boston Dynamic Robots playing Linebacker.

Oh, that doesn't sound very fun.

It's not when Skynet goes active, it's when it becomes aware that is the problem.

So it can go active, you just can't let it go aware.

That's when Arnold pops in my door.

I have mixed feelings on the drone show.

It's definitely cool that they're doing it and all that.

Uh, but I'd rather just hear the explosions of fireworks, personally.

I will say the big blue face logo that they put up there was probably the most

impressive thing I've seen in a while.

That was cool.

I would have preferred Gary, if you could have used, uh, yours or your

lovely bride's it skills to have manipulated that QR code to send people

to our YouTube channel and subscribe.

Shameless plug.

You've got to work on the next time.

Did you see the comment I put on the screen?

It says the helicopter to write off from PS2.

I don't know.

It's awesome.

Yeah, I'll give it to you guys here.

All right.

Drone show is cool, but it was I prefer fireworks.

Yes.

And CB, we appreciate CB.

All the awesome photos you see at ODU Monarchist dot com come from CB.

He's co hosting with me for Hudson Homers for ODU Baseball

and another shameless plug that will be back within about a month.

So get ready.

Awesome.

All right, fellas, we have one last call.

I'm going to play that for you right now.

Hey guys, uh, Justice again here.

This time I'm joined by some special friends.

Got a special message.

To the millions and millions of college football fans, can

you smelalalalalalalalalalala

what the Monarchs are cooking?

Let me ask you a question.

Are you ready?

It doesn't matter if you're ready.

Let me tell you something, brother.

The question is what you're going to do when Monarch nation runs wild on you.

Uh,

justice with an absolutely bonkers call.

I love that.

Uh, I'm also in honor of justice and his car right there.

I'm gonna start calling everyone brother.

That's right, bro.

There you go.

Yeah.

And when Mike asked us, yeah, we'll just wait when, when we get

to predictions for next week, let me tell you something, brother.

Yeah.

Oh, I w I was ready to rip my shirt off, but I just got this

at the bookstore on Saturday.

So, or on Thursday.

So no, no thanks.

I'm not ripping this bad boy up.

So not yet.

Not yet.

We just got these bad boys.

So, um, All right, I'll be ready to move on to Boone.

So I'm going to try to get going again, get back to that place I was a minute ago.

All right, let's get you hyped up, Mike.

All right, come on, come on, come on.

Hope we didn't, we didn't mess up your good take.

This is the good take, even though we're live tonight.

At 2.

30 PM in Boone, North Carolina, Old Dominion is going to take on Appalachian

State to maintain their hold of first place in the Sun Belt East.

Uh, Appalachian State comes in this game, Sunbelt.

Uh, big shocker, uh, we talked about it, I mean, we talked about it on the

show last week, but I also talked about it with Danny Reed on how the Sunbelt

East is just kind of flipped on its head right now, and it's because of the

pre season hype surrounding Appalachian State, uh, they are struggling right now.

They're 2 in the conference, uh, looking at PFF, their offense is rated

slightly, like, around where we are.

We're not near the top because of all those slow games we had moving

up before Georgia Southern, but their defense is porous at best.

And this is an opportunity for Colton Joseph and this offense to continue

the show after a nice extended rest.

Yeah, I'm curious.

I'm definitely gonna be watching their game on Saturday against Georgia State.

Uh, I know it's on ESPN Plus, uh, 1 o'clock kick on Saturday.

If you're an ODU fan, you should definitely tune in and get a,

get another look at App State.

But, you know, if the season ended today, just like everyone predicted,

uh, ODU would be playing Louisiana Monroe for the Sun Belt title.

So to say it's turned on its head would be a little bit of an understatement because

I think we were picked fifth and they were picked to finish last in the West.

I was gonna say, you guys are Vegas, guys.

What?

What's the odds on that game would have been at the beginning of the

season that that game would be it.

That one, if you had, if you had that, Oh, do you?

You'll I'm in the conference title game.

You'd have retirement money.

Yeah, I mean, that's 10 10, 000 to one most likely if you did the exact

that I don't think anyone offered it.

But if somebody out there is holding a U.

L.

M.

O.

D.

U.

Sunbelt ticket, congratulations and feel free to give to the pride of O.

D.

U.

And I'll collect some of your winnings.

I'd also like to allow us to do this as a living.

I'd also suggest we take it.

I also suggest you cash that out right now because ULM's

final stretch of the season is not easy by any means.

I mean, this week they play Louisiana, so their road gets

a lot tougher moving forward.

However, ours, I don't know.

I feel amped up about this team and where we can go with a offense.

that is starting to match how great this defense has played all season long.

Well, honestly, I don't even think it's about who we're playing.

If our team continues to play the way it is and it's capable of,

they can compete with anybody.

They just got to keep doing what they're doing, especially in this last game where

it's really all started to come together.

Finally,

And yeah, I, I don't really know what to think about app state.

Like it would think be easy to say that they're done at this point.

I mean, they got blown out by South Alabama on a Thursday night at home.

Uh, they went up to Marshall and gave up a bunch of points and lost that game.

They lost to Louisiana down in Lafayette.

I think they are going to get some juice on Saturday for the first game

back in Boone since the hurricane and the impact that that had on

Boone and all the surrounding areas.

Like I think there's going to be, I think they're going to be amped

up to, to go and win that game.

And that could be the final nail in the coffin for Georgia state as well.

So I'm, I'm kind of glad we're not that game, but it's going to be

interesting to see if this is app state kind of getting their thing, right.

And they're going to start playing more of what we thought they would be.

Or I mean, if they drop another one, I think they're, they're pretty

much mailing it in at this point.

So watch that game on Saturday.

I think that's going to tell you a lot about what our game will

look like the following week.

I, I'm, uh, I think at this point, given his contract situation and how they

performed in the last couple of years, there's a good chance that we might be

the dead count bounce for Appalachian state if they don't win this weekend.

Could be.

Because, you know, They have high expectations down and been very high

expectations and they're funneling all their money to football.

Um, they will not deal well with a two and five start and a loss

to Georgia Southern or Georgia State and Owen for in the Sunbelt.

I don't,

I remember them talking for any coach at App State to survive.

Like you said, I mean, they just got such a history of

sustained superior performance.

Um, Their fans have like, no tolerance for results like that.

And I remember them, when we beat them last year, their fans calling

for his head, after that game.

It's not gotten better since then.

No, because those hopes were sky high coming into this year and

they have fallen very, very flat.

Uh, this is another opportunity for us to go exercise some demons.

We've, we've been doing that this year with beating Texas State

by more than one possession.

We take a big lead in the game last night and we not only hold on to

it, we expand it and shut it down.

I know at halftime, I was not the only one thinking about some toast

bowl that we were in last year.

But, knock that out real quick to start the third, we have never really

played a competitive game in Boone.

I mean, we've had some of our worst games in ODU history down there

in Boone, just never competitive.

I think, we made it two years ago, we made a good comeback in the fourth

quarter, we were down some guys, played a little more evenly, but we were

never in a position to win that game.

So it's an opportunity to go and check another one of those boxes off of, all

right, yes, we beat app state last year.

Now let's go down to Boone and get a win.

So it's just a, a good carrot to dangle for the guys of you can

be the first OD team to go down here and win and then maintain.

That swag of being number one in the East.

Like these, these guys have some confidence now and you're

seeing it translate to the field.

You're also seeing it with picking guys up.

Like Seamus had two of the worst punts of the season last night, back to back.

The third one, he absolutely hammered and coach Ronnie was running out to him

on the field, like they had just won the national title and the whole team

was coming with them and I just tells you where they're at from a culture

standpoint in that locker room to a picking guys up who are not having a good

day and erasing their mistakes like that.

Defense.

Just basically snuffed out the two bad punts and we were good.

Hey, uh, on the same note, after I think it was maybe the second bad punt

he had, we were sitting right on the 50, thanks to our awesome bank truest.

They did not pay for that, but they paid for the tickets last night.

And we were, Seamus comes off the field.

He's got his head hung low and he had a whole gang of teammates greeting

him after he had that bad punt.

And I think that is even more important than him being celebrated.

We did step something right because his teammates are picking

them up when it didn't go right.

And that is the type of teammates that you need when you're going through a tough

season where every game is going to be a battle, because that's what the Sun Belt

is every game is going to be a battle.

Before last night I had a talk with another ODU fan and go, how many games do

you think are going to be favored in and the whole discussion was hard, like just

trying to figure out like, Maybe Marshall.

Uh, I don't know.

Like now that's changed obviously for the week, but then a week later that could

change back to where it was last week.

Like we're, who knows?

So being picked up when you fail by your teammates, it's

just a beautiful thing to see.

And I'm glad our team was doing that for Seamus last night.

It's a happy locker room.

And I don't think they practiced today because some of the coaches

were going to be hitting the to, uh, go and recruit early this morning.

But man, it's really fun to win on a Thursday and you just get to enjoy

everyone else's misery for the rest of the weekend, watch them sweat and struggle.

Oh, I'm going to be kicked back with two TVs and the Octobox

going on all day on Saturday.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, before we go deeper into this Appalachian state game,

what games do you got circled on Saturday, Gary?

I'd love to hear it.

And if any of the fans that are watching has a game that

they're suggesting we watch.

Drop it in the chat.

Uh, well, I'll start with one tonight.

UNLV Boise State is going to be pretty awesome game.

Uh, so if you're, if you're looking for something to do after this, uh,

that game will be on here in a little while, but I've got to pull up, uh,

the old picket app here to tell you what I'm really after this weekend.

Um, I, I kind of want to see, uh, Arkansas State put Troy down for good.

So I think I'm going to tune into that Sunbelt matchup.

Basically in Troy season.

I get a little advanced scout on the Red Bulls for the final game of the year.

Really good call by Alec here.

Navy, Notre Dame, that's a big one.

That's, that's my game.

And then, being in Norfolk, we're all rooting for Navy to kick their ass.

and keep this amazing season going for, for the midship in,

uh, go Navy, beat Notre Dame.

We all want to see Notre Dame lose as many games as possible, but maybe being on the

other end of it, that would be so cool.

I'm rooting for the chaos that an undefeated Navy and an undefeated army

will do to the college football playoff.

Cause that, that would be a lot of fun to watch them play in the American

championship for, A spot in the, in the playoffs in the following week, play

army Navy, and you watch two teams.

One of them has already in the playoffs play the hardest they've

played all season in that game.

And then go to the playoffs and probably beat somebody.

That would be so crazy.

Make it so.

All right, Alec, what is he got here?

Uncle's class of 81.

Naval Academy is family and home to me.

Very cool, Alec.

Uh, go Navy.

G5 Hive, Justice is backing you up on your UNLV Boise State game, Gary.

Uh, I'm, I'm kind of interested to see how Vanderbilt does

hosting Texas this weekend.

Vandy and the points.

Well, we could get a transitive win over Texas, Gary.

We technically have one over what?

Bama and Georgia.

So, right.

Give me Texas, please.

What could have been in Columbia?

What could have been in Columbia?

The chaos season that we're in right now, you all I'm in first place.

Vanderbilt, a top 25 team.

How can you just not love this?

It's it's chaos and it's great.

It's you just don't know what's going to happen Saturday to Saturday.

And we've had some incredible games across the board.

Like I'm thinking, you know, after the Georgia State game, I was in

a bar watching, it was Ole Miss.

LSU, like Ohio State was playing Oregon.

You're getting these, these matchups that are just unbelievable

coming down the final play.

You sit back sometimes, just remember that college football is a lot of fun.

Even if your team loses, it's still more fun than probably

anything else you're gonna do.

Um, another game.

I love SEC football, obviously for my background, but LSU, Texas a and m at

Texas a and m, that could be a lot of fun.

And then their fan base is just interacting.

It's just so funny to me.

Because the Cajuns on the bayou are just so fun.

And the folks texting them are kind of buttoned up.

So them just interacting for a game is just funny to me.

The cult versus the Cajuns.

Yeah, wouldn't you want to just be there to watch?

Like, people watch that?

Oh yeah.

And eat all the good food.

Because you're either having barbecue or Cajun food and you're not going to

miss either one with those fan bases.

You had me at food.

Um, I don't know about the ACC what they got going on this

weekend, but nothing Important.

Oh that that's another thing.

I want to talk about now that we've got almost 200 people here on the live

There is uh some incorrect information going around about the college football

playoff and how those top four seeds are determined the four teams That get a bye

Uh, it does not automatically go to the champions of the power for conference.

It goes to the four highest ranked conference champions.

So on almost every year, that's going to be your P4, right?

But there's some funky stuff going on in the big 12 where

that could not be the case.

So I just want to get rid of that narrative.

Cause I hear people like analysts on ESPN talking about, Oh, it's always

going to be the power for power for, no, it doesn't have to be like

Boise state could sneak in there.

If they go and win tonight, the UNLV, cause they almost beat Oregon.

Like they could, they could pop in there, talk about Navy.

If they go undefeated, they could be higher ranked.

Then maybe there's a four loss team that wins the big 12.

Like they're going to get in that by first.

So just want to throw that bit of actual information out there.

Uh, and so if you want a G5 team to get a buy, you would be rooting

probably for Boise tonight.

All right.

So I guess back on focus.

Appalachian state.

What can you tell me this year?

I'm Gary.

You're our, our guy that does the research.

Most of like I am, I am the gut guy and Aaron is just our positivity.

That's right, man.

I just dice chicken bones, having a good time and, and.

You know, color inside the lines.

So Gary, what can you tell us about this athletics day team and, uh, maybe

try to explain what is going wrong other than their defense sucking.

I haven't been able to do the good deep dive research yet.

I just got back home today.

We kind of had a big night last night.

I don't know if anyone heard about that.

Um, but there, they just seem like they're playing whack a mole like

one week, their defense is good.

The next week their offense is good, but they're not playing

anywhere near their expectations.

Uh, they're, they're really not rushing the ball right now.

Like I think they get in like 4.

3 yards of carry, which isn't terrible, but against some of

the teams they've played, that should be substantially higher.

Uh, they're turning the ball over a ton.

They've thrown 11 interceptions already this season.

They're just, something is just wrong on that offense.

Uh, they are struggling in the trenches too, especially on the offensive line.

It seems like that's probably where the problems start for their offense, but.

They just, they've had some guys not pan out this year that I think they were

hoping to hit on in the transfer portal.

And they just haven't been as good as they thought.

Um, but they are better than their record currently indicates.

And they have more talent on that roster than what they're showing.

So don't go in and check the box and think it's going to be a win just because

we played really well the last two weeks and may have been in the doghouse.

Uh, they're just something, something's not right there.

And it could start with like, they're allowing 45 percent

of third down conversions.

That's a big, big one, uh, for their opponents.

Especially when you look at some of the teams they've

played haven't been that great.

They're giving up five and a half yards per carry on the ground.

Uh, and I think in the passing game too, they're allowing 13 yards per catch.

So, so a lot of problems.

They are, they are rated the worst team in cover pass coverage.

In the Sunbelt on PFF, Georgia Southern.

Wasn't too much better.

If I remember actually Georgia Southern is fourth.

Oh, not anymore.

Last night, they were the issue with Georgia Southern.

It was not their coverage.

Their issue was their hash rush is one of the worst in the league.

They also stopped blitzing last night because they didn't.

They kept, they got tired of getting burned and tried to rush three,

drop eight, and it did not work.

Um, the other issue with Appalachian state, other than coverage looks to

be, they're tackling, they're one of the worst tackling teams in the league.

Um, not really a great combo.

If you can't cover and you can't tackle leads a lot of, uh, big place.

The way that we've been running the ball, not tackling well, it's

going to lead to a recipe for.

Not good stuff.

If they do that, well, the little part about it is if you

can't cover, you can't tackle.

I mean, it takes two of the biggest things out of the game,

but you have to try to stretch your defense a little bit differently

to make up for those issues, right?

But for a team like Old Dominion, where we can run the ball and then when we

suck you in with the run, we'll just throw it over your head down the middle

of the field like we did last night.

There's only so much you can do to help out the coverage

and the bad tackling issues.

Yeah.

And I wanted to, before I said this stat, I wanted to go back and make sure

it's good because I had not checked it from their game last week, but it is.

They are horrendous in the first quarter.

They're being outscored 75 to 13 in the first quarter.

Uh, they've given up, uh, 77 in the second, but their offense, that their

offense's best quarter is the second they've scored 69 points there this year.

So they kind of start behind the eight ball and they have to throw a lot.

And, uh, and if justice is pointing this out, their offensive

line is not where it should be.

So a repeat of our approach to Georgia Southern was punch them in the mouth

early and just keep scoring points.

Uh, it could be another recipe for success down there in Boone

because that's a rough go for their offense in the first quarter with 13

points at this point in the season.

Yeah.

I hope that's not a stat that we're like we've last week with

Texas state where like We dominated them in the first half and we shut

them down in the first quarter.

And we flipped that on Ted, right?

I hope that is not a stat that we flip on its head because that's how you let leave

the door open for a team like Appalachian state, because they do have a lot of

talent and they should not be this bad.

No.

And you don't want this Georgia state game to be the get right game.

And then all of a sudden, like the app we expected is who we face down there.

But yeah.

I will not be predicting that this game is a route like I did for Georgia Southern.

This is going to be a, this is going to be a fight.

Um, I think anytime you go play down in Boone, you're just, you

squeak out with a one point win.

You will gladly take it, get on the bus and drive however many

hours to the airport to fly home.

So that's another thing that we should talk about.

Obviously this area has been wrecked with flooding and the hurricane.

And a lot of stuff is just upside down.

Prayers all the people in that area.

I hope they can figure a way through this and sorry for all the losses

that In your neighborhoods and but I know there's a lot of hotels have

just been Destroyed in this storm.

Where the hell are we staying?

I'm guessing you're gonna have to stay an hour and a half or two hours

outside at least because it was It's hard to stay there in general on a

game day, you know, uh, so it you're probably doing some driving Yeah, I

know historically we do not stay in Boone for the night before the game.

Like I, I want to say we stay in Greensboro and then bus over the day

of either Greensboro or Charlotte.

So might explain why we've played for there.

That's a long bus trip before you have to get loose and play a football game.

Part of that home field advantage, man.

There are a couple of those spots like that.

And the Sunbelt like Southern Miss is another one.

They're an hour from Biloxi.

I think there's like one hotel in, uh, In, in town that like I could actually

host a football team and it's like one big meeting room and that's everything.

All your meetings, all your meals, everything has happened in that one room.

Yeah.

We talked about that with Monroe.

So the nearest hotel for teams to stay at to Monroe is 45 minutes outside of Monroe.

And the, uh, locker room at the stadium only accommodates for 50 guys at a time.

So the teams have to go, they have to go in, in, in phases to get

changed and get ready for the game.

And then at halftime, you're not all in the locker room because

you can't all fit in the locker.

How was that not an FBS requirement?

Uh, they, they were so many stupid requirements, stupid

requirements that NCAA has.

But something like that, no.

Well, I mean, the same reason we don't, we, we got rid of the

attendance rule because if you actually enforced it, you'd be losing these

teams that these conferences need.

So half a conference USA and a lot of the Mac.

Oh yeah.

That was, I got a look at the visitor locker room at Bowling Green and it

reminded me of like a high school gym.

It's just kind of all cinder block walls on the inside.

And I know if you watch the post game press conference video,

I know you didn't listen to it because I couldn't hear anything.

I was standing a foot away from coach Ronnie.

Uh, I can smell that locker room without ever walking in it just

from memories of high school.

If they made that into like a, uh, air freshener hang tag in your car, you would

bring back so much PTSD for some guys who got like rolled up and wrestling

mats and stuff or crashed on the floor.

And that's the first thing I smell when they came to is that awful gym smell.

Thank you for the memories and the bonus edition of Staff Infection.

It's like wet socks and ass.

If this was a movie, my light would start flashing.

I'm going back to the high school days where I'm walking in after a

three a day, just beating up and sweating out 20 pounds of water

again

after drinking out of a water hose all day.

Yeah, scouts enter the chat.

Scout has entered live and Lenny both of them get it.

Dogs.

We ordered Indian food and it apparently is here.

Your dogs are very excited about hope you got him some non.

Hey, they're just doing their job protecting this house.

Just like our defense has been doing all season.

Very nice.

Mike.

I like that.

I don't know if the defense has been getting enough credit this

year for how well they've played.

Other than Coastal, they've been great in every game.

And obviously, Virginia Tech, the dam broke, but, you

know, it wasn't their fault.

No, we were in that in the fourth quarter because of the defense.

Like, they just keep rolling dudes out there.

Like, I'm having to look at the roster to, like, double check that someone had

a number change, like, who was out there.

And there's just no drop off in play, like for Georgia Southern to score

that touchdown against kind of our reserve secondary, they had to draw

up like a perfect fade route with a perfect throw and a perfect catch.

Like, that's the only way they scored on those guys.

And I think those were some like walk ons and guys that.

May not have even touched the field this year, and they're still giving Georgia

Southern Hell all the way down the field.

It's Coach Siler, enjoy them while you can.

That's the beauty of it.

We talked about it before we started.

They had basically four plays that accounted for almost all of their yards

last night, but almost every catch they made had to be a miraculous catch

because of how good the coverage was.

There was like three catches that I saw them make.

There was like,

That's a pretty damn tough catch to make like that's almost a play of the

game type of catch Just to get seven yards like yeah, it's unbelievable.

And we just unfortunately we weren't sweating any of them

It was like, all right, whatever And I know Georgia Southern fans are not

super happy with clay Helton because of the things you pointed out with Mike

and just collapsing Down the stretch.

Yeah, if you want to be mad at him for another reason putting a flea flicker on

video You Down 44 to seven and celebrating like you on the national title.

Come on, buddy.

Like, come on, really?

Yeah.

First thing I said to Aaron is I can't believe they blew a

waste of the trick play there.

Like, what are you doing?

The game's over.

They were, that's where they were.

That's, that's how down bad they were last night is they had to go to that.

It was well executed.

So I'll give them that.

Oh yeah.

The screen they ran for the long touchdown for the first touchdown was a good point.

That was nice.

It was well designed, well executed, and, you know, we sent the house

blitzing, which, I love us blitzing.

You're gonna get caught occasionally on that, but Yeah, an old boy

squirted through and he was fast.

God, yeah, he had some wheels.

That was a white boy, right?

Dallas?

Yup.

Yeah.

Yeah, he was well blocked, too.

Are you sure he wasn't our number 11?

He only plays special teams now, Aaron, so I know, but, I mean, he was so fast.

Yeah, you gotta practice better, I guess.

I don't know.

All right.

Holden Brown.

Holden Brown got a snap at quarterback last night, so, uh, chat before we do

this, any predictions for this weekend?

If you add them now, we'll talk about it.

Let's hear.

I mean, for app state, sorry, not this week.

I was going to say,

let's say what day is it?

It's Sunday.

I'm confused.

This is crazy.

I'm confused.

I remember when we first started, we were doing episodes on Thursdays.

Oh yeah.

Cause we were trying to do that, like visitor Q and A thing.

Yeah.

And now we're, we're doing an episode on Friday.

This is wild.

All right.

John wants to know, I'm going to put this comment up.

It says what remaining games are must wins to guarantee a bowl appearance?

Uh, John, that's a good question, but I think it's a long question.

This team is focused on winning a Converse Championship.

We're not worried about a bowl right now.

We're worried about winning a Converse Championship right now.

Hell yeah, Mike.

But, must wins.

Uh, I think you got to look at the two weakest teams left on our schedule.

What, how they've performed through this point of season.

Uh, and I, I think it's A State, Arkansas State.

We got to win there.

That would suck to have to win that game to go to a bowl.

I'm tired of having to win the last game to go to bowl games.

I want to have more than six before the last week.

Well, and the other was probably app because I mean, they

are two and four right now.

This is where my head's at Mike.

Ricky gets a couple extra days here.

We talked about this a little earlier when he has extra time.

They're usually fruitful results.

All right.

So we go down to app.

We get that win.

We keep this momentum going.

And then we get number six against the team that everybody wants to see.

That's what it needs to be.

And we freaking put our elbow on those dudes.

And we give our fans something to be happy of because they've just continually

been beat down the last few years there.

And John, that is a fair point that we have not won more

than gone over 500 since 2016.

I get it.

I get it.

But this team is different.

I think the best thing we can do is just get bowl eligibility out of the way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Weeks.

We talked about the end of last season, beginning of this season, like, the