Mike and Gary recap ODU's 24-14 win over Texas State and preview Georgia Southern. Plus a special guest to get you excited for the Military Appreciation Game on Thursday night.

Monarch Nation, it is another victory Sunday for the Monarchs.

Me and Gary are here to talk about it.

Old Dominion wins homecoming 24 to 14 over Texas state.

But first Gary, how are you doing, buddy?

I'm doing great.

Got back to Richmond about an hour ago after driving up from Norfolk.

That drive is always much more fun coming off of a victory, but.

What a game and what a win for ODU on Saturday for homecoming.

Uh, so defensively yesterday was a something you want to put in

the trophy case of a performance.

So, I mean, that was phenomenal.

Um, we held them to zero points in the first half.

This is one of the best scoring teams in the country in the first

quarter and in the first half.

And we held them to nothing.

It was a shocker.

I think coach Rahne said that they have been outscoring their opponents 86 to

13 or 86 to 14 in the fourth in the first quarter coming into this game.

Just a masterclass in defensive planning, effort.

tackling was really good.

I mean, Blake Seiler and that staff did an incredible job getting

this team ready for Texas State and everything they wanted to do.

And maybe they had a slight leg up because Texas State runs an offense

very similar to what this defense sees all the time in practice, and they

seem to have the right recipe for just completely shutting it down early.

All right, monarch.

So before we get to our review of the game,

Georgia Southern, I wanted to jump right into fan calls because we've

got some two great ones this week.

Uh, so let's jump into it.

Our first caller

is Erin.

And she has a very funny story.

I found it funny.

Hey guys, Erin here, 2012 O.

D.

U.

Alumni.

And, um, I currently live in Lexington, Kentucky, but I just watched the O.

D.

U.

Win over, um, over Texas state.

But I was like, In the grocery store at the same time, so I had the game

on my cell phone watching on the SPN app with my headphones in and I need

y'all to know that when Colton just ran in that gold winning game winning

touchdown, I actually jumped up and down in the deli section and considering.

It's Lexington and the UK Florida game doesn't kick off for another 45 minutes.

I'm pretty sure no one here had any idea what that reaction was to,

um, but it was totally worth it.

So anyway, go monarchs.

And, um, I love that story.

So.

Keep rooting for the Monarchs and keep listening.

We appreciate it.

All right.

And our next caller is, uh, a staple here.

Justice, let's hear what he has to say about the game.

Hey guys, justice here.

It's, uh, it's great to be calling in after an awesome win yesterday.

The defense played phenomenal.

The offense was able to, uh, to get it done.

Um, just.

I mean, I can't say enough about the performance of that defense

yesterday and, and holding down that, uh, explosive Texas State offense.

Uh, so yeah, it's just a great win.

Uh, looking forward to, uh, Thursday.

It's a big game, uh, potential, uh, a lot of potential in terms of who wins the Sun

Belt East based on the outcome of that game and just hope the fans, uh, show up.

They'd be on national TV, ESPN2, uh, hope fans are there and they're loud

and, uh, cheering on our Monarchs.

All right.

Go Monarchs!

Thanks for the call justice.

Um, nice hanging out on Saturday and Friday.

We really appreciate your support as always.

Uh, and I do want to call out, uh, sorry, before I was going to say,

thank you for the apple pie moonshine.

Yeah, that was clutch.

It did not leave the tailgate.

It was very much enjoyed.

Um, but before we move on, I need to show a logo that I told Carrick, one of

our regular callers that I would create.

And he didn't call in.

Call us, Garrick.

We're waiting for it.

So we know you went to the NFL game today, but come on, man.

That's a long time in the car.

And we, we named you the Duke of Discipline.

Mike made the graphic.

Uh, just disappointing, but, uh, at least your, your

commanders are winning right now.

Give us a call, Garrick.

All right, now to the game.

There's a couple of things I wanted to point out about what happened yesterday.

We win the turnover battle by forcing McCloud to throw two, uh, interceptions.

One is kind of puts the icing on the cake and doesn't, I don't know,

it gives us the edge, but does it really have an impact on the game?

I don't know.

Um, penalties, we played one of our cleanest games of the

season with just four yesterday.

Obviously Texas A& M has three, but that's still a fantastic

development for our team.

And finally, Colton Joseph, first quarterback to run for 100 yards

since DJ Mack did it, um, 2021.

Or no, sorry, his three touchdowns was the first since DJ Mack had

three against Hampton in 20, 21.

Um, he's the first rusher to have over 100 yards in a game this season.

Um, just phenomenal offer by Colton yesterday.

Yeah.

I mean, he really was the offense for us.

If you start digging into that box score and start thinking about the

game, I mean, our best offense was a play that had broken down and he was

able to take that gunslinger mentality and move the ball down the field.

Uh, I think the difference that we saw Saturday in both the, uh, the How the

game was played in the result, like why it's different from South Carolina and

why it's different from East Carolina.

Is Colton Joseph making plays when things broke down and making, turning what could

be a negative play into a positive play.

Cause I feel like in, in South Carolina, we had kind of got

our backs against the wall.

We, we turned the ball over against East Carolina.

We were taking sacks.

Uh, but last night we saw that wildcard card factor that Colton Joseph has,

and he made huge plays with his feet to go win this ball game for us.

Yeah.

And we'll also add a Aaron young.

It was nice to have him back.

Um, especially on that fourth down and two play.

Where him and Conroy got it done.

And that O line needs to get some credit here.

Cause another game where we run for close to 200 yards on the ground.

I'm thankful.

I mean, obviously Colton's a big part of that, but.

That offensive line deserves some credit as well.

Yeah.

And that was clearly the biggest decision point of the entire game.

We're on that last drive.

It's a fourth and two we're in plus territory.

We can kick a long field goal.

I think it would have been 48, 49 yards, definitely within Ethan Sanchez's range.

But then we go up by six and we give Texas state, which still hasn't

really, really good offense and a very experienced quarterback that could

have come down, scored a touchdown, kicked the extra point and won it.

Uh, but coach Rahne said in his postgame press conference, he was going to kick it.

And because we had that two minute time out, he got to think about it.

I think the offensive guys wanted to go and they looked at Aaron young and

Colton, Joseph said, we need to go get about a yard and a half, two yards.

So you all get the ball and run offensive line, just push as hard as you can.

And let's get this and send this thing home.

And that's exactly what they did.

And that's that confidence that coach Rahne has been talking about for this

past, uh, really the whole season, like the team lacking confidence,

but They were showing confidence in that moment of saying, we want

to end this game with the ball.

We want to go get the first down.

We want to score.

And that's something we hadn't seen from them this year.

So I think that's almost as big of a turning point for this team

as just beating Texas state.

And the play after that, uh, RPO Colton takes it to the

edge and beats the defenders.

off the edge and into the end zone for what?

30 yards.

Phenomenal run by cold in there.

Yeah, 25 yard exclamation point to put on that game.

I'll be honest, I was yelling from the stands once he got the first

down, go down, go down because now we can just need it out and we don't

even give texas state the chance.

But Uh, I'm, I'm glad he did score.

I'm glad we went up by 10 since we were 10 point dogs.

I don't know.

There's something very satisfying about that line being flipped,

but also if he doesn't go in the end zone, Angelo Rankin jr.

Doesn't get one of the best interceptions that we have seen at old dominion.

One handed near the sideline on a really tough to defend route

that was going to that side.

He makes it sideline goes nuts.

Fan goes nuts like.

exclamation point, exclamation point on just a big, big time win for this program.

And the hardest part about that catch is when he hits the ground because obviously

when you get the ball in the air, but when you hit the ground, it's off that

impact usually jars the ball loose.

So his strength to hold on to that ball when he hits the ground is I don't know.

Great catch.

It was top three on Sports Center yesterday.

Um, I don't know if we'll see a, a catch like that in a, a long time.

I mean, I hope we see some more in some upcoming games.

But, uh, great play by Angelo and I talked to him after the Georgia State game.

And, you know, it's always been a situation at ODU, at least the

last couple of years of the defense has to be the one to go out and

make the play to win the game.

It's, we haven't had a whole lot of situations where it's like on the

offense, like, all right, you guys have to go punch it in and win the game.

And I guess the terminology used on the sideline with the defense is like,

all right, boys, it's time to go put out the fire, go put out the fire.

And it seemed like that conversation was had after Colton Joseph's

touchdown of like, We can put this fire completely out, go out there and do it.

And for a guy's experiences, Angelo Rankin jr.

To make that play, that's just kind of like the philosophy

checks the box, the mentality, the effort, all that checks the box.

And you can see it.

That defensive staff was going nuts on the sideline.

I don't know if anyone broke any ribs or anything, but Blake

Seiler was picking up and hugging everybody he could find close by.

Um, one other thing I want to kind of point out is this patch work O

Line, um, Santana Saunders goes down.

And Connor Drake comes in for him.

We already had Woo replacing Hoskins after his injury.

So we have, I mean, we're figuring it out.

Um, but I'm hoping we can get Santana back soon because he's

just a difference maker at guard.

Yeah.

Maybe the adjustment adjustment of the year is moving, flipping guards

and tackles, putting Barlev on the outside, moving Santana back in.

Since those changes have been made, the offensive line has, I think,

done a really good job of adjusting.

And then you factor in Colton Joseph and what he's able to

do with his pocket presence.

And the way he can find those openings and lean into his blocks a little bit.

It's been a good combo.

Uh, they were facing a lot of pressure last night.

Texas State was bringing some heat.

Uh, offensively, I wasn't super excited to see the double stack come back.

Because Texas State knew how to defend it.

They put six in the box.

They played press man on the outside, had one safety over the top.

It essentially takes away everything you want to do in that formation.

Um, so they, they had a tough job on the O line last night, but I

thought that they really didn't miss a beat from the last couple of games.

Great to see that improvement.

Yeah.

Um, now going back to defense, third down conversions, we held Texas state.

One of the best offenses in the G five to three of 13 on third down.

That's the game right there.

I mean, that's.

Incredibly impressive.

Cause they are a team that usually doesn't face many third

and longs and they convert a lot.

Uh, I think one of the main reasons for that is the pressure

we were putting on the cloud.

I mean, I felt like there was someone hitting them constantly.

I think we ended up having seven quarterback hits yesterday.

A couple of, uh, a sacks, a couple of talk tackles for a loss.

I mean, you called it during the episode last week of last year, JMU.

We hit him a couple of times.

He didn't look right.

And he threw interceptions.

And that played out on Saturday.

So great call Mike on that one.

And I get lucky every once in a while.

Um,

speaking of sacks and pressure and all that, another game where we win that

battle, another game where we only give up one sack, uh, we had two of our

own, not a lot, but considering what the last two seasons have been like to

continually go like three straight weeks, where we're only giving up one sack.

It's, it's a fantastic change.

Because I think at the beginning of the season, we were leading

the country in sacks again.

We were well on our way to being at the bottom of that stat list

again for second year in a row.

And it has completely flipped on its head really since I think Bowling Green

is where we started seeing that change.

And that's when the tackle guard flip happened.

And Colton Joseph was inserted in the lineup and his feet just keep plays a lot.

So they do credit to the line and Colton.

Yeah, now I will say, outside of what Colton Joseph did on a lot of

broken plays and some design runs, the offense didn't look great.

Now, Texas State has an improved defense.

They I think they were like fourth in the country in sacks coming into that game.

So it's not like we were playing a bad defense and we didn't perform well,

but we still have a lot of things to fix on the offensive side of the ball.

We were not able to effectively throw the ball down the field.

There wasn't much room up the middle for running.

We were able to, to get some things when we needed it, but I felt like we

regressed offensively, to be honest.

Like we went back to being more spread out.

We weren't doing those things to help Colton Joseph out and

have those easy, quick reads.

We didn't throw it over the middle very often.

Um, the Colton floated a couple of passes to like he had Isiah Paige.

I think a couple of times would have been touchdowns.

It just floated the ball a little bit.

There's things he can work on, but.

You know, I'm not going to let that overshadow a really, really important

home when, where the offense made the plays when they needed to make the plays.

I'll say those floats, uh, often happen when his feet are not set.

When he throws the ball.

Um, it's a pretty common trend I've seen with Colton.

He, uh, throws on the run and he, uh, makes throws off balance quite a bit.

It's a tough throw to make, but, um, it's an easy adjustment moving forward.

I think.

Yeah, I think he was already in the mode on Saturday of I've got to move.

I've got to move around in the pocket.

So he may have been had a little happy feet, but those were very happy feet

running into the end zone three times.

I will say I was happy to see that.

The only play that like really had me scratching my head on offense was on that

last drive where we were running clock.

We were getting first downs.

We ran some sort of throwback screen where Colton went to the

right with the running back.

And then we tried to throw it far left to the other side

of the field, like a screen.

And I think Devin Roche was in there somewhere surrounded by trees, but

that was so close to being a pick six that would have put Texas State on top.

So.

I think the best thing you can do Sunday.

I know they're already starting to prep for the Thursday night game is print

out about 10 copies of that play, put it in a metal trash can, light it on fire.

And let's never see that play again, please.

Especially in that situation, because that could have flipped

the whole game on its head.

Yeah.

Um, hold on.

I am getting an announcement.

We have a.

Special call coming in.

Yo, Mike and Gary, what's going on, man?

I miss you guys, but I did get to see the game last night.

Older men, the defense continues to play well.

Both Texas State, 3 of 13 on third downs.

Really throttles from the cloud back.

We win the battle of turnovers, and we have a really nice time of possession

with just a couple minutes less than them on the offensive side of the ball.

Colton really continues to come into his own.

The team runs for over 200 yards.

Colton with like about 100 on his own and puts the game away at the end, man.

Uh, it was awesome.

It continues to be awesome.

Don't call it a freak.

Next week, you can't wait to be home and you know it.

Ethan Sanchez, 50 yard field goal for the win.

Wilfrid, go Monarchs.

I know that said Europe, but it kind of sounded like he was staying on the

side of Hampton Boulevard near 49th Street and the light just turned green.

Yeah.

The car noise was pretty obvious.

Sorry about that, but thank you so much for sending that in, Aaron.

I'm pretty excited to see you back for this game on Thursday.

But if we lose on Thursday, you're going to have to figure out

another way to attend games because it can't be your fault if the

little, not a streak streak ends.

Yeah.

Um, all right.

Um, defensively, there's a couple of names I want to give credit to.

Marcus Knight gets a fantastic interception.

Uh, Jahleel Culbreath continues to perform fantastically in his weird

bandit, like linebacker safety position.

Um, I think he had a career high in tackles yesterday.

Jahron Manning continues to be one of the best safeties in college football.

14 tackles on the day.

Um, he's just everywhere.

He had to come up a lot and run support yesterday because

Ishmael Mahdi for Texas state.

Is a really good running back.

He's not the best.

He's not Ashton jeanty.

No, one's going to touch that, but it's very possible that he's the

best running back in the Sunbelt.

And he got his yesterday, but Jahron Manning being back.

There's a safety net kept him from turning those, you know, 10 yard

runs into 60 yard touchdown runs.

Sometimes by a shoestring, whoever was getting a hand on a foot.

There, uh, saved us a couple of times that would have been a different

game if we weren't tackling well.

Uh, but yeah, the defensive side of the ball, uh, Jerome carter ended

up with, with four tackles as well.

Uh, Seth, Noatala, uh, had three, a more, he had three, uh, I mean, we

just had guys up and down, up and down the list making plays and we

were hockey style line changing guys on second and third down and you saw

no drop off like that depth is real.

It's there.

And it was very well coached and those boys executed on Saturday and that

was, that was To shut down someone like Jordan McCloud, who has lit

teams up for like four or 500 yards this year was incredibly impressive.

Um, Mario Easterly at safety had a career high, eight tackles as well.

And then Mario notches another sack for him, his fourth on the year.

Uh, just phenomenal group effort here.

And

on the offensive side, uh, DJ Chandler was back on the field for

the first time since South Carolina.

So we actually had two tight ends that were available.

Potentially getting three back soon.

TBD on that.

We don't know anything, but it's possible that we could see some Jalen

Butler here in the next couple of weeks.

Uh, having those tight ends back is going to help a lot in the run game, especially

DJ Chandler, a little bit bigger.

I'll never forget Pat Conroy.

I mean, he's been a monster for us stepping up, uh, with

his first year on the team.

Yeah.

Um, yesterday I think was a page had the best day receiving.

He did.

He got hit a lot too.

He was banged up,

but, uh, Yeah, not much to talk about receiving lies yesterday, our passing

game was well, there was one thing that you pointed out and it's about

Myles Alston and that quote unquote fumble that occurred on the sideline.

Yeah, so I was standing in the beer garden in the end zone.

So I had an amazing view of it.

I could see him step out of bounds live during the play.

So today, when I had a chance, I went back to check, uh, on the ESPN plus feed,

and it's clear he steps out of bounds.

We shared the picture earlier on Twitter.

Take a look.

Uh, I just don't know why that play was not reviewed.

It's a turnover.

It can be reviewed.

Um, it would have been, if, if it gets reviewed and flipped,

we had a hold on the play.

So it's not a first down.

I don't think it's probably going to be third and long.

We'd likely end up punting, but who knows what the scenario would

be if they actually reviewed it.

And the fact they didn't is just mind boggling to me when it's

so obvious it was very close.

Uh, I just don't understand why that wasn't reviewed at all.

I was shocked that they didn't go take a look at that, especially

given the situation and that there, there was a hole there.

I don't know if we would've done anything else in that drive.

We might've just punted it away, but I'll gladly take that flip and field position.

Cause Seamus Hall was back on Saturday.

He had three punts that went inside the 20.

He was averaging 39 and a half yards a punt with a long of 45.

And he wasn't in a lot of situations where he could just, you know,

go bomb a 60 yard or either.

So I would rather seen Seamus Hall be able to punt that down maybe to the 20 to 25,

that kind of changes things a little bit.

I know they ended up missing the field goal anyway, so no impact to the game,

but that officiating crew was struggling with their decision making because

there was the Texas state fumble that was ultimately ruled an incompletion.

But there's a referee standing right in front of where Koa is

making that great play on the sideline to keep the ball inbounds.

And we fall on it.

The ref is looking right down at it.

And he looks, he signals to stop the clock, and then he just starts looking

around at the other refs like, I have no idea what the call on the field is gonna

be, like, I have no idea what to do here.

They talked about it for like 40 seconds, finally made a call, then reviewed

it, and then called it incomplete.

So, they weren't the worst crew we've had in the Sunbelt.

They kept the flags in the pocket for the most part.

But that's a pretty basic thing that a ref should be able to do of look

down and say, Oh yeah, his leg was out of bounds when he touched it.

Or the back judge says it was an incomplete pass.

I don't know.

That was very frustrating.

That one for me, cause that took a lot longer than needed to.

I will say, I think they made the right call on that being an incomplete pass.

Um, his arm was still going forward, even though he did get rocked and it was

close to being an empty handed throw.

Um, but he did move forward and release the ball before.

He released it.

So, um, yeah, I think they made the right call there.

I'm happy they kept the flags in their pockets.

It was nice, uh, relief from our past few weeks where we're

seeing 20 flags thrown a game.

But you got to make that you got to do that review and you got to

make, you got to be on the ball when an obvious call is being made.

I don't know.

I mean, that's a good example.

I'm standing right there and not being able to confidently say anything.

It just looked lost.

Eyes were going around and I mean, it happened at his feet.

It wasn't one of those where he's chasing the play down and it can be hard.

Now he's there, he's ready.

He sees what's unfolding and then just completely shit his pants when

it came time to make the call, which.

Whatever we won.

It didn't hurt us, but if that would have been the turning point in the game,

uh, my tone would be slightly different.

Um, I do want to give some credit to Joey Hobert.

Um, on Friday night, we learned that he used to be college roommates

with Colton Joseph's brother, Drayden and Washington state.

They also played pop Warner ball together where a Colton's

dad, David was their coach.

So the connections between, uh, Joey Hobert and Colton Josephs are pretty

thick, but he played fantastic yesterday.

Yeah, he, he had a pretty good game yesterday.

Uh, we did a good job of containing him in a lot of spots too, but he had six

catches for 88 yards and a long of 40.

Uh, he's obviously a weapon.

He's one that they like to target down inside the red zone too.

The person that caught the touchdown, uh, Beau Sparks looks so similar to

him when they're on the field together.

Coach Rahne mentioned that too.

Uh, he was the one that leaked out and had the 24 yard, uh, touchdown

catch there on fourth down.

But they, they had playmakers that was a good team that we beat on Saturday

and experienced team, huge offensive line, very dangerous defensive front.

Uh, so that, that's a win that you're, you're going to look back

on and be pretty proud of here.

Cause I think they're going to do some damage in that Sunbelt

West, but Hey, we're looking to do some damage in the Sunbelt East.

And we got a really good opportunity to keep that going on Thursday.

Potentially, uh, take some two game leads on some people.

Yeah.

Um, so we've been kind of bragging about this defense all season and

obviously the coastal game kind of threw us off and that this game against

Texas state proved we were right and how good this defense can be.

Um, and that the coastal game is more of an anomaly of a team coming

off of by fresh and focused on us.

So keep this up defense, defense.

And we have a real chance to win this Sunbelt East.

If we get another performance like that from the defense and the offense

matches, maybe what it has done in the last few games where it's looked really

efficient, we may blow some teams out.

I didn't know if we'd ever win a game by more than one possession,

but we did that on Saturday.

It's the first time we've done that since we beat Coastal with Hayden

Wolff and Blake Watson back in 2022, when we went down there and blew

their doors off after the bye week.

It's So we just beat the odds on favorite to win the Sun Belt by 10 at,

we kind of talked about that, how if we get on Georgia State and get a

win, find a way to beat Texas State.

And if we can beat Georgia Southern on Thursday, we're four

and four, and your perception of this team is going to change.

I think it's already, already started that we're, we are a contender to

win the Sun Belt East right now.

Yeah.

And now we have Texas state fans questioning whether they're frauds or

not, and that's a fantastic place to be.

Hey, if they want to sleep on us a little bit, or future teams

want to sleep on us, that's fine.

We will not be sleeping on you.

And that defense will come give you a pretty quick wake up call.

As a McCloud found out a few times, I think Jahleel is the one that hit

him really hard on a read option.

Handoff McCloud didn't have the ball anymore, but he'd got absolutely

blown out of his shoes on that play.

And I don't know if Ricky was.

Coaching him up afterwards or celebrating with him.

But I know they had a quick embrace on the sideline after he just planted

the dude in the turf was great.

I talked to him briefly after the game with him and his dad.

And there's not, I mean, a lot of you guys are proud to be Monarchs, but that guy,

I don't know if there's anyone more proud to be a monarch than Jahleel Culbreath.

I mean, he's what you hope for in every player on the team.

Just gassed up.

So stoked to be here and ready to make place.

You can feel that energy when he's on the field, when he's subbing

in there, he's spreading off that sideline to get into position.

It was good.

It was good to see a lot of guys like that.

I mean, they played like a true cohesive unit.

The coverage was unbelievable.

We were doing a really good job of disguising some of our coverages.

I think that's how Marcus Knight got his interception.

Like he was, McCloud was probably thinking he wasn't supposed to be there.

And then as he released the ball, hi, he's there.

And now you've got to go tackle Marcus Knight.

Uh, the only thing that would have been better is if he would

have just stiff armed McCloud to the ground and gone for six.

But big play on the interception, big return to get it back in easy,

uh, red zone attempts for us.

We were three for three in the red zone yesterday.

That's been a struggle for us all season long.

And we were three for three in the red zone.

Uh, just, just awesome, awesome stuff.

And then time of possession is when we talk about, uh, Texas state was

slightly ahead of us, I think they had 31 minutes, 16 seconds, we were at 2844,

but we did a great job in the second, in the fourth quarter to take the air

out of the ball and keep that Texas state offense on the sideline, running

that play clock down to under five seconds, running the ball, making the

smart decisions and just eliminating.

drives for Texas State.

We probably took four drives away from them just by being

smart when we had the lead.

And we all know that's something we struggled with a lot last year of

how do we play smart with the lead that seems to at least have corrected

itself now because we were able to swing that time of possession back.

The play differential was small and we just, we look like we

expected to win that game.

And that is what we need to get back to with winning culture at ODU.

Yeah, but while you mentioned the entire possession, we need to raise

the red flag again on the third quarter because the third quarter, our offense

did absolutely nothing and it's not the first time this season we saw

it against Coastal and it was a big reason why we didn't win that game.

It could have been a reason why we would have lost yesterday,

but thankfully we had the great performance in the fourth quarter

to kind of pull us out of that funk.

But, um, that is concerning coming out of the half.

We should be playing better ball.

Um, and yesterday we, I don't know, is it execution or is it coaching?

I don't know.

The big one that flags to me is Virginia Tech.

I believe we had zero yards in the third quarter against Virginia Tech

and that was Virginia Tech made a lot of adjustments at halftime and

it took us way too long to try to figure those out and adjust ourselves.

It seemed like into the third, started the fourth.

We had adjusted to their halftime adjustments and we started

shutting them down again.

So it's kind of a chess match.

I mean, you're up 14 to nothing against the team.

You're supposed to be losing to at halftime.

Like what adjustments are you really making other than maybe

some tweaks on offense and you kind of have to be prepared for

what they're going to throw at you.

Like the defense seemed ready.

The offense was a little bit thrown off, but again, we saw a lot more

double stack in the third quarter.

We saw less passing to the middle, less success in the run game.

Um, but then we kind of got back to what we needed to do in the fourth quarter.

Yeah.

Hitting those outside runs.

Bounce it out.

Yeah.

Colton showed everyone beat him to the edge and your gold.

He was torching dudes around the end, like running back style, torching guys

took the right angle, got the right leverage, and then just after burners

gone, uh, it was when he has the ball in his hand, don't you just feel like

something good is going to happen.

We're going to win this game.

It might be something that scares the shit out of you.

Like some of those passes that probably should have been picked off, but.

You know that he is a gunslinger.

He is trying to be aggressive and make plays.

And that is so good to see at the quarterback position for

us in this offensive style.

Don't be scared.

Yeah, he's been a joy to watch so far.

And you can kind of feel the energy changing around the stadium now with

fans because the last few years, you didn't know what to expect.

And I'm hoping more fans get on board because yesterday, apart from the

student session, which was rocking.

There were a lot of fans disguised as seats,

um, for home.

There were also a lot of fans who, when Colton scored the touchdown to

go up 10 started leaving, like we haven't seen a win at home this season.

And like, you're leaving now, you're going to miss the final minute.

And the celebrations, the students stayed students were amazing.

Like.

I'm, I'm more impressed by their turnout than I think anything else this season.

But yeah, stay, if we're gonna win the game, stay and celebrate.

Let those guys see you cheer for them after the game.

Like, they went out there and earned that.

Yeah, I'm a little worried about a Thursday night game, considering

what the crowd was for a perfect October Saturday for homecoming.

What's it gonna look like when people have work to blame on why they're not going?

I'm hoping people take the approach I am and they're off of work or they're

going to cut out early and come over.

I mean, what else are you going to do that's that much fun on a Thursday?

Like the weather's supposed to be nice again.

You got a good matchup of good teams fighting for the number

one spot in Sunbelt East.

You can go on StubHub right now and buy all those tickets that Virginia

Tech are holding for season tickets.

Get cheap tickets, you can come in, and I promise you it'll be more fun than

sitting at home watching a terrible Thursday night NFL game or something.

And we get a drone show this week, ODU.

And I'm pretty excited to check it out because I've never

seen one in person before.

I saw clips of the one that Texas had on Saturday, and

that was pretty cool looking.

Uh, we're also going to have some other stuff pregame.

And I think, uh, we may have someone joining us here in a little bit, little

surprise guest action on the Monarchist podcast to talk all about that.

Yes, sir.

So, um, is this a good time to move on and take a break for the collective?

I think so.

All right, let's do it.

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 the pride of ODU.

com that is the pride of ODU.

com.

Thank you for listening and go Monarchs.

All right.

This Thursday night at 7 PM old dominion football host, Georgia

Southern for first place in the East, but it's also military appreciation

week for old dominion football.

And as Gary alluded to, we have a very special guest, our buddy, major Monarch,

Harry McBrien, who we're going to add to the call right now and talk to us about

some awesome things going on Thursday.

Welcome to the show, Harry.

What's up, fuckers.

How are you?

What's up, Harry?

It's good to see you, man.

Hey, thanks so much for, uh, let me join in on this wonderful

victory Sunday for the Monarchs.

Yes, sir.

So I know you've been working a lot behind the scenes with Old Dominion

and the military to make this a very special military appreciation week.

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about what you got planned.

So I gotta, I gotta say for those that know me, I don't bullshit.

I call things like I see it.

And when I tell you ODU has opened up and put out basically a red carpet for

the military, I'm not exaggerating.

This all started years ago when we started our Toys for Tots drive, as you know.

We slowly started to integrate more military vehicles, personnel and equipment

into the, um, to the game atmosphere.

This year, this Thursday is going to be the culmination of all that work.

We started meeting as a collective with ODU folks and a lot of folks

from a Comnav, Air Lant, Air Lant owns all the aircraft folks, PIOs

from Fort Eustis, Fort Story.

And basically it's going to come together on Thursday, but it really starts.

It starts tomorrow because if you haven't already mentioned, uh, the

Ricky Rahne coaches show is going to be on the, on the Dwight D Eisenhower.

And that's cool for a couple of reasons.

Number one, if you don't follow that commander of that Eisenhower on Twitter.

Or whatever snap tweet or instant trap crap you do social media.

I highly recommend you follow him on Twitter.

This guy is awesome.

Now they were on an extended period of time over a deployment over in the Middle

East and, and being shot at and drones thrown at them from the Houthi rebels.

And now they're back in port and they're hosting us.

They're hosting the coach show.

That's pretty impressive.

So I imagine you're going to hear from him because he does social media, right?

Um, and does a good job and I, I followed him during his whole deployment.

So that's tomorrow between seven and eight that kicks off this week.

And then on Thursday, let's get, let's get to the meat and potatoes.

You guys ready for this?

Let's do it.

All right.

So Thursday, we've got some friends from, uh, VFA 106 the gladiators out

of Oceania for the past three years.

So this is the third year They've been supporting us with flyovers for

toys for tots and stuff this year.

We're including them into the flyover Not for the game itself, but actually for

kaufman mall Which is cool because all the engagements and all the activations

that are happening on Kaufman Mall, it's, it's going to start off with

a flyover of the section of F 18s.

So basically two F 18s.

And these are some pilots that have been a part of this for the past three years.

So this is great stuff So that's at 16 45.

That's 4 45 for you non military types out there So that's going to coincide

with the monarch march then Monarch march and gary you had this idea last

week You texted me or we put it in our group about it's going to be led out

by Army and navy rotc In front of them.

So that that's awesome So we're going to see that for the first time well

at least First time I've seen it.

Then we're going to have a army and Navy obstacle courses and different activations

on Kaufman mall so that kids can come out, put on gear and things like that.

That's huge.

A lot of interactivity there.

I will say we actually had a black hawk helicopter scheduled to land there

and to be able to go on as a static display, but because of limitations and.

And the size of Kaufman, as you might know, uh, we're not going

to fit that into the scene.

So we had to, we had to wave them off, if you know what I mean, wave off, sorry.

So we'll also have Air National Guard display there and Air Force

EOD with their, with their bomb equipment and their, their little

robots and things like that.

Uh, the kids will be able to see all that and play.

I think that's pretty darn cool.

And then, um, we'll have the all veterans jump team come in with the

flag game ball, things like that, as you might have seen in the past.

I think it was a couple of games ago.

We had that.

And also.

For the first time that I know of, uh, we're going to have a 30 piece army trade

doc band going to be melded in with the monarch band to play the national anthem.

So there'll be in uniform and meld it and mix right into them.

That's a meld.

It is a, uh, air to air intercept term.

Sorry, excuse me.

Anyway, long story short, that's going to be really cool to have

them, uh, marching out and be out there for that, uh, national anthem.

And then, uh, as you know, there's gonna be the drone show.

If folks haven't already talked about that at halftime, that's not military

such, but it's, again, it's all supporting this, this whole effort.

I will say that ODU, uh, put out over 2000 tickets for military members to this game.

That's huge.

So besides all the pregame events.

You're going to have, um, in game events, you know, uh, bringing

into pilots onto the field, things like that, and a lot of recognition

and, and just a lot of shout outs.

Again, I am extremely proud

of my alma mater and Old Dominion and how they've really just brought this

all together over the past few months and are really accepting our military

heritage that we have here in the area.

That sounds incredible, Harry.

That's just something going on really every minute leading up to kick off a

lot of fun things to get involved with.

Uh, yeah, I'd seen the West Virginia, the coal miners sometimes lead the team

up there March and I immediately thought of like, why don't we have military

members doing that for the mark March?

So awesome to hear that that is going to be occurring.

You know, I love jet noise, so I will be on Kaufman mall early.

So I have a good vantage point to watch the F 18s, uh, fly over there, but, uh,

amazing work by you coordinating with ODU and all those partner groups there

to, to really have a good experience for the military members are going to

be coming to that game because I'm, I'm excited to see it grow as well.

I know Mike is, uh, of course, Aaron is as well, uh, even though he's, you know, over

in Europe, having some fun at the moment.

Uh, so yeah, really exciting stuff.

This is a great opportunity for us to showcase this, the tidewater area

and all the military involvement.

Right on national stage with ESPN.

That's huge.

And I'm hoping to capture those F 18s coming over, uh, Kaufman mall, and then

put that out as they're starting the game.

So it's kind of cool.

And, uh, Mike, if it's all right, can I do a, just a, a way too early plug for

what this is leading to for November?

Yeah, definitely.

Hey, you don't have to ask your, you can go ahead.

Hey, it's your world guys.

I'm just a visitor right now.

So I appreciate it.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

Hey, uh, so again, what started all this a few years back was us sponsoring

the, uh, annual Toys for Tots.

And so we've got that coming up for the JMU game.

So there'll be more military activations.

We'll have two amphibious assault vehicles there right on 49th street.

Bring the kids bring toys If you don't remember to bring your kids

or your toys You can uh venmo money because then I use checkmo.

I still write those checks as you guys know Gary picks up gary picks up subs and

I give him a check for half to the subs at the tailgate Anyway, long story short.

So that's coming up for the jmu game.

So folks have fun this week Enjoy the festivities, but be prepared because

you know Even though my, my daughter and my son in law's alma mater went

down and shit themselves last week or yesterday, uh, lost the game.

Uh, we're excited that they're coming.

And this is, uh, I think the second time they've been a part of our Toys for Tots.

So

yeah, I will say that.

Oh, sorry, Gary.

I was going to say that the, you know, two years ago when we had Toys for

Tots at home, it was on the JMU game and JMU fans did a really good job of

showing up and supporting that as well.

So, you know, all jokes aside, they did.

Yeah, they did a great job.

I know we're not going to have much of a tailgate going on in blue lot on Thursday.

We are going to migrate everything to Kaufman mall.

And I think that other people should take that lead as well.

There's going to be so much going on there.

Uh, so many members of the military, so many things to see like Kaufman mall is

going to be the spot to be on Thursday.

Uh, so whether you're coming down and staying in a hotel, you're just making

your normal commute to the game, uh, grab one of the spots and head on

over to Kaufman mall and join us for a pretty awesome celebration pregame.

Yeah, so the theme is pack The Mall this week and then for the next

game, pack the track with toys.

Pack them all.

Be there, Monarch Nation.

That's an order.

You heard him, ODU fans.

Show up, show out, and appreciate these military veterans and service

members we have at ODU and in the area.

Thank you so much for joining us, Harry, and thank you so much for

all you're doing to connect, better connect ODU with the local military.

It's all very appreciated by us.

Thanks guys.

Really appreciate the time.

We'll see you on Thursday night.

Go monarchs.

Go monarchs and keep up the great work.

Harry.

We'll go.

All right.

Thanks Harry for joining us.

Uh, now we have to talk about this Thursday night game

against Georgia Southern.

They're coming in here with a three and a record in the sunbelt,

five and two record overall.

They've been playing fantastic on both sides of the ball.

This is going to be a very big challenge for our monarchs.

But we have a shot.

We always have a shot.

Well, just like everyone predicted, ODU and Georgia Southern are

playing on Thursday night for first place in the Sunbelt East, right?

You know, everyone had that pick.

No one picked App State or JMU or somebody like that.

Uh, it's going to be a good old fashioned Thursday night Sunbelt dog fight.

Like that is what's going to happen.

It's two teams coming off short rest after big wins that they

probably weren't expected to get with Georgia Southern beating JMU.

Uh, we beat Texas state.

Uh, it could be anything, right?

Everyone's on short rest.

Thankfully we do not have to travel.

So Southern has a little bit harder route to get there, but they're

pretty battle tested and you go look through their schedule, they lost by

11 to Boise state and Boise state.

As Ashton Jeanty, who ran for a million yards against them.

Uh, they were still very much in that game.

Uh, you know, went over all the way to Reno and they beat Nevada, who's

turned into a pretty good team.

And the only other loss was they lost to Ole Miss who at the time was very healthy

and look like they were the potentially the class of the sec coming out of there.

They'd come back, went over Marshall.

They dominate JMU, uh, for their homecoming.

Uh, I mean, it's, it's.

It's teeing up to be a really, really awesome game.

Like the, the numbers there for ESPN probably can be pretty solid there.

Yeah.

So if I'm looking at PFF and trying to evaluate where our opportunities

are in this game, it's going to be, so looking at their offense on PFF,

they have a very good run game.

However, their run blocking is scored very badly.

So to me with our very strong rush defense, that looks

like an opportunity for us.

Yeah, I mean, I would, I would think so.

I think that's a, that's a pretty good setup for us.

And then if you look at the other side of the equation in their

passing game, uh, they've got J.

C.

French who he's a gunslinger.

He's going to throw it around.

Reminds me a lot of Garcia from East Carolina without so many

turnovers, but he's still 10 touchdowns, five interceptions

completing 64 percent of his passes.

Saturday gets JMU, eight through three interceptions, but they

still won by two touchdowns.

So they're obviously doing something right there.

But if we are able to take that advantage, shut down the run, force

more passes, our ball hawking secondary may have themselves quite a day.

And then it's just on the offense, you're going to go punch it in

like you did against Texas State.

Uh, but I, I love, love the way that our defense lines up with their

offense right now with what they do well versus what we defend well.

And then on the other side.

Defensively, they have a very, they have one of the best

secondaries against in coverage.

So their linebackers can cover, the corners can cover their safeties are

covering very well, but their rush defense is their sort of, sort of weakness and

they don't have much of a patch rush.

So that bodes well for us with a quarterback who can

run the ball extremely well.

He's going to have more time to throw and make plays with his feet.

And you've called more time.

That's only good things, right?

Like you can't, you can move the ball.

Uh, the only thing I'll say for their pass rush is they were able to get to

JMU's quarterback six times on Saturday.

And now I don't know if that's JMU, you have an O line problems, bad

scheme, what was going on there?

Uh, but to get six sacks against JMU, you seems like it's a pretty big deal.

So we're, we're going to need to tighten up on that.

That past defense or on the past blocking, but I mean, J.

C.

French is not better than Jordan McCloud.

He's not.

He's not as experienced.

He doesn't have the track record, doesn't have the success.

And we shut McCloud down.

So we need to do the same thing to French.

Maybe just let him throw, like hit him, let him throw because, and you

toss, toss three picks in a game that you went by two touchdowns and

there's going to be opportunities for this defense to go eat again.

So, I mean, you mentioned the sacks they had against JMU.

JMU also had a lot of procedural issues on Saturday.

Um, a lot of pre snap, false starts, a lot of that stuff.

That tells me that offensive line just wasn't in the, in

the right mode for that game.

So definitely something much.

Yeah.

Some, something seems off with Jamie's O line for that game.

And maybe it was just scheme.

Maybe they just schemed it up and blitz.

Well, but I don't know.

I was a little shocked to see that be such a dominating win for Georgia Southern.

Yeah, I don't want to overlook them.

I mean, they obviously are coming here with a fantastic record and they

beat some really talented teams, but.

Looking at the PFF stuff, it looks like all of our strengths are

gone against their weaknesses.

I mean, they weren't expected to be much coming into the season.

I think I even joked about it on like our preseason episode of we

sure as hell better be Georgia Southern at home on a Thursday night

because they're gonna be terrible.

Well, they're not terrible by any means.

They're good.

I mean, if we're playing for first place, they're doing something right.

Uh, I think this is just going to depend more on, do we show up with that same

intensity that we had Saturday, that same focus and game plan and execution.

If we do that, I don't care.

Who's coming to SB ballot.

We're going to win that game.

And I've, I feel much more confident in this team because I think they feel more

confident about themselves right now.

All right.

So, uh, there's one, another thing in the top of the back of my head at the

same point of season last year, they were also very well suited to finish strong in

the Were they not like, then they start off strong last year to the finish line.

Yeah.

Cause we, we kind of had the, the kill shot on them when we went down to

Statesboro towards the end of the year.

Yeah.

They ended the season with five straight losses.

Now 22, I kind of want to say the same thing happened.

Yeah.

Cause they came out high flying offense.

They did beat us at Ballard, but it was close.

It was not expected to be close.

So given it's been a two year trend for them.

There's a good possibility this team again blows up down the stretch

until they prove anyone wrong.

I don't know just throwing that out there You're you're on the right track there.

I think the marshal game may have Held that off for a little while because

it looked like early when they played marshal That they were done and that

was the corpse of georgia southern was going to play out the rest of the

season But they came back and won that game clearly carried that momentum into

beating jmu But how far does that, how far can you run on just that moment?

Like, how, how long does that take you?

Like, is this the letdown game?

Cause they could probably look at us and say the same thing.

Is this the letdown game for ODU?

So I don't know.

I, that's why this is just going to be a fun dogfight game.

Like if I didn't, if I wasn't rooting for either side, this would be a must watch

game for me on a Thursday night, because who knows what's going to happen, but it's

going to be two teams that are playing for just about everything in front of them.

Yeah, I'm excited for this one.

Um, It's going to be a great atmosphere.

Obviously the pregame is going to be fantastic.

Um, and then the halftime show is going to be very cool.

I just hope we have a crowd worthy of all that's going on on Thursday.

I know that classes after 1 p.

m.

on Thursday are canceled.

So students, no excuse, start getting lubed up around 1 o'clock

to see at Kaufman Mall from about 4.

And then, uh, get in, get there early and let Georgia Southern know that you're

going to be having some fun with them.

The entire game, but I have no doubt that the students are going to show up.

They're going to be there.

It's the rest of the stadium that I'm, I'm a little concerned about,

but 2000 tickets out to the military.

And let me tell you, you want to talk about an untapped potential fan base for

ODU, the Navy base is right down the road.

Oceana is in Virginia beach.

You got Langley right across the river Fort Eustis up in Newport news.

I mean, that, that should be our second fan base is, is the military that we have,

because it's so easy for them to come to the games and, um, I'm glad to see ODU

really open in their arms to make them feel welcome, you know, Yeah, Harry's

been doing that outreach and connection all off season with them and we've had

some really good conversations about what that looks like moving forward.

But I'm just looking right now to see the opening line for this game.

Looks like Vegas finally spartaned up.

ODU is the underdog by plus one.

Finally a one score, uh, spread for us.

Yeah, and I'll tell you that line is jumping all over the place because

at one point for a little while today Odu was a two point favorite.

So there is money flying on both sides of that line and I think that just means

that everyone's like, all right, I'm just going to pick Southern for this game.

I'm just going to pick ODU for this game.

And we're going to see, I don't think that thing is going to get to three

in either direction, unless there's like a major injury announced, like

a French is down, we'll probably go to three and a half, four.

Um, but I mean, as far as I know, I know to you side, we came out in pretty

good shape other than Santana Saunders.

From this game on Saturday.

Uh, and we got Aaron Young back, so that was a surprise.

Yeah.

I wasn't expecting him back for a while, but very happy to see him back.

Hoping Santana can get healthy.

If not, I'm glad Conor Drake got that experience on Saturday so he can continue

to build and get more comfortable playing on the line because I got to

shake hands with him after the game.

I knew he was big, but standing next to him in his pads and his

helmet, that kid's a monster.

Him and Keenan McNally standing next to each other is an

impressive sight to behold.

Like they, they probably have their own gravitational

field, so don't get too close.

Uh, but they are, there's some big dudes, man.

And you put them in their guard and just let them go push

some other big dudes around.

You can have some success there.

Yeah.

And I got to imagine that's a real big confidence builder for him to come to that

game for Santana played extremely well.

Uh, obviously sometimes you're going to get your butt kicked on the offensive

line, but everyone's going to get their butt kicked on the offensive line.

Eventually that experience in a win where they ran the ball extremely well has to

be really good for his confidence moving forward and his comfort level, which is

very important for an offensive lineman.

It's gotta be being sandwiched between Flores and Debose-Bourne

is not a bad setup to have.

Those are two very experienced guys.

Who are really smart up front and can help you not get your ass beat so

bad, which I think they, they helped out, but you're going to have to do

some damage to, to knock Connor back.

Cause he's, he's a big, big boy.

Yes, he is.

So, uh, is there anything else you want to talk about with this game before we get?

So I, I've noticed the past couple of weeks when the games have been on ESPN,

they've been, or ESPN two, they've been doing sports center live from the campus.

I don't know if that'll be the case this week, but that would be very cool.

If we get Matthew Barrie doing sports center live from Kaufman mall with all

this great military stuff going on.

I hope that happens.

I hope so as well, but I think, I think that they're going to be at

pit for Syracuse pit doing that.

Uh, cause they haven't, they've only had like one college game on

ESPN the last couple of Thursdays, at least on the primary ESPN.

It would be really cool though.

I mean, hard to find a better spot than right there on Kaufman mall

with everything that's going on.

Um, you know, time of that fly over, right.

We'll add all their audio equipment.

Yeah.

I wish I could, there was somewhere I could check to see which crew was

calling our game for ESPN too, but I'm not sure if that's available yet.

I have not seen it yet, but usually that comes out Monday for Saturday.

So we'll see.

All right.

Well, I think we should bring back Harry on for picks.

I think we should make Harry pick.

Absolutely.

I see him smiling in the little backstage window.

Get back here, Harry.

All right, Harry.

It's prediction time.

We already know Aaron's is, uh, Ethan Sanchez, 50 yard game winner.

We're going to let you lead off because it's Military Appreciation Week.

You're our favorite veteran.

Let's hear it.

What you got?

Here's what I got, guys.

So I hear Aaron every week and I love his enthusiasm for the 3.

58, 90 yard, whatever the hell kick he comes up with for the win, my prediction.

And I don't care what the score is.

I just want one more point for the Monarchs.

That's my prediction.

We're going to, we're going to at least win by at least a one point.

Boom.

One part victory for major Monarch.

I love it.

It's all we need guys.

That's all you need.

I'm going to go second this time.

We'll let Gary, uh, clean this up, but I have been going with the route of,

we keep playing this defense, we keep running the ball down their throat.

We control the clock.

We don't, we limit our mistakes.

We limit our penalties.

We're going to win.

And that's what I expect on Thursday night.

Old Dominion Moneyline.

I'm staying away from spreads, totals, all of that.

Because ever since I started doing that, we started playing better football.

So ODU wins.

Who cares what the score is?

All right, Gary, what do you got?

I'm, I'm torn here because I picked us to cover last week, but not win straight up.

And I feel like if I now pick ODU to win straight up, I'm the problem if they lose.

So like, I'm, I'm in a, I'm in a weird spot here.

Um, I think this is going to be.

An absolute route of Georgia Southern.

I think this defense carries that momentum from Saturday where they shut

down a really, really good offense.

And our offense didn't play particularly well.

They still won 24 to 14.

Offense is going to show something we haven't seen a whole lot this year.

And I think it's going to be a lot more through the air for Colton Joseph.

a lot more to Pat Conroy, a lot more over the middle using those

slot receivers the way they should.

I think that we are having a really fun time in the fourth quarter

celebrating a two to three touchdown win over Georgia Southern and

first place in the Sun Belties.

And if they lose, yes, you can blame me for picking ODU and I'll, I'll pick

against them the rest of the season.

The Monarchs win it big, big celebration.

Well, I like your prediction the best, because if that happens,

we're all going to be just dancing in the blue light after the game.

We'll be dancing somewhere until they put us in cuffs or we're

having to call Harry to bail us out.

Oh, geez.

Here we go.

I got my own problem, guys.

Well, we'll what do you call it?

Check my own.

We'll send you a check for bail funds.

Nice.

Yeah, we need to.

We'll do it for you.

We'll do it.

Before the game.

Nice.

All right.

Well, thank you for joining us today, Harry.

Uh, thanks for listening to everybody get to Kaufman mall on Thursday night.

Pack, pack the castle.

Let's make this a tough place to play on Thursday night.

Other than that, go Monarchs, go Monarchs, go Monarchs.