NORFOLK — The days of battling exclusively against its own schemes in the midday heat are officially behind Old Dominion.
The Monarchs, at last, have other teams to worry about.
And if intrasquad scrimmages are the frying pan, the fire comes Saturday.
ODU, in the wake of a 5-7 season, opens the 2025 campaign this weekend at preseason No. 20 Indiana, a team that went 11-2 and reached last season’s College Football Playoff.
The Monarchs, who return six starters on offense and four on defense, don’t plan on being intimidated by a Big Ten environment.
They’ve held their own against Power Four programs in recent years, twice since 2018 defeating Virginia Tech of the ACC and taking South Carolina of the SEC to the brink in a 23-19 road loss last season.
Indiana’s Memorial Stadium has a capacity of nearly 53,000, more than twice that of ODU’s S.B. Ballard Stadium.
The Monarchs are embracing the challenge.
“This is what college football is about, right?” sixth-year ODU coach Ricky Rahne said Monday during his weekly news conference. “That’s why we love when our fans show up.”
Sunday, when the Monarchs began to immerse themselves in second-year Indiana coach Curt Cignetti’s familiar schemes, Rahne pumped in loud recordings of the Hoosiers’ marching band to simulate the expected environment.
ODU sophomore quarterback Colton Joseph, who was publicly named the starter last week, will experience his first action in a major-conference stadium.
“There’s always a little more excitement,” Joseph said. “There’s another edge to it that you’re going into a Power Four house.”
The Monarchs are 2-15 against Power Four or Power Five conferences, the latter a thing of the past since the Pac-12 was demoted last summer after mass defections.
Rahne said he and some of his staff members started studying film on Indiana as early as the spring, a decision that was a natural product of opening the season against the Hoosiers.
Other than obvious personnel changes, there weren’t many surprises. Cignetti came to Indiana from James Madison, the Monarchs’ longtime rival and a fellow Sun Belt Conference member.
Saturday’s game, which starts at 2:30 p.m. will be broadcast nationally on FS1.
The attention isn’t lost on ODU.
“Obviously, we know there’s going to be a lot of eyeballs on us in this game,” Rahne said. “And people are going to want to see how Indiana responds to the success from last year. I’m not naïve. Our guys understand that.”
Jeremy Mack, a senior linebacker who transferred from Colorado, embraces the attention.
“I’m a big football fan,” Mack said. “I like the challenge of going up there to Indiana and playing around a whole lot of red.”
In addition to watching Indiana’s film, Rahne and his staff have dipped into Cignetti’s days at JMU. Cignetti, the 2025 National Coach of the Year, went 52-9 in five seasons leading the Dukes.
The numbers, colors and faces have changed, but the “overall feel,” Rahne said, remains consistent in Cignetti’s schemes. And finally, after weeks of ODU’s offense and defense squaring off against each other, it’s starting to show up on the field through the scout team.
It will show up for real on Saturday.
“When you’re a little kid in the backyard and you’re throwing or catching the game-winning touchdown pass,” Rahne said, “that’s the environment you imagine.”
David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com.
