NORFOLK — A fairly substantial fraction of Old Dominion’s 27 returning letterwinners had more than a little to do with the team’s 42-35 home loss to Marshall last November.
The defeat, the last in a three-game skid, stung as much as any of last season’s seven, in that it derailed the Monarchs’ uphill climb toward bowl eligibility.
Even fewer current players factored into the Thundering Herd’s 41-35 victory in Huntington, West Virginia, two years ago. It is, especially in the era of massive roster turnover, relative ancient history.
For further perspective, most of ODU’s current players were awaiting adolescence when Marshall took the first meeting between the teams, in 2014. None of them can recall as participants even the Monarchs’ 35-17 win in 2017, their lone victory in the 10-game series.
When ODU visits Huntington on Saturday, the only history that truly matters will be how practice went this week. But the Monarchs (4-1, 1-0 Sun Belt), winners of four straight and, increasingly, the talk of the Group of Six universe, fully respect the past.
“It’s always been a tough, physical game,” said sixth-year Monarchs coach Ricky Rahne, who has lost in all four tries against the Herd. “Obviously, the record speaks for itself. They’ve had my number in particular. Obviously, I want to make sure that I go 1-0 this week.”
Since Rahne took over before the COVID-canceled 2020 season, the average score differential in the series has been eight points. That includes a 20-13 overtime loss at Marshall in 2021 and a 12-0 home loss the following season.
The Herd’s Joan C. Edwards Stadium, which holds 38,000, has drawn an average of just more than 26,000 through two nonconference games.
The venue has a reputation as being a tough place for visiting teams, but the Monarchs welcome any boisterousness.
“I wish all stadiums were like that, whether it’s for us or against us,” said senior defensive end Kris Trinidad, who hasn’t beaten Marshall in three tries as an active player. “It makes the game a lot more fun.”
Added seventh-year center Ryan Joyce: “It’s always fun to play in front of a good crowd.”
Marshall (2-3, 0-1) is coming off a bye week that followed a 54-51 double-overtime loss at Louisiana to open the Sun Belt Conference schedule.
First-year Herd coach Tony Gibson, asked for an assessment of ODU, started with the Monarchs’ season-opening 27-14 loss at Indiana, which has since ascended to No. 7 in the Associated Press Top 25.
The Monarchs, often using simple plays designed to have complex and vexing results, have since blown out North Carolina Central, Virginia Tech and Coastal Carolina. A rainy 21-7 win over Liberty, in which ODU failed to score in five red zone chances, is the only recent sign of the surging team’s mortality.
Gibson, a former defensive coordinator at N.C. State, reminded reporters that his team opened the season with a 45-7 loss at what is now the nation’s 10th-ranked team.
“They’re as good as anybody on our schedule, including Georgia,” Gibson said, referring to the Monarchs.
“They’re a very good football team. We’re going to have our work cut out.”
After receiving votes in this week’s American Football Coaches Association poll for the first time, ODU continues to traverse uncharted territory.
The Monarchs are 45th in ESPN’s College Football Power Index, which uses simulations to predict season outcomes for each team.
The same metric gives ODU a 19.8% chance of reaching the College Football Playoff — a heady notion indeed for a program, resurrected in 2009, that’s younger than all of its players.
Rahne, who was practically assaulted with questions about national rankings after last week’s win over Coastal, has remained even-keeled about outside attention regardless of his team’s record.
He said the pundits who picked the Monarchs to finish fifth in the Sun Belt East in a preseason poll — “the same people who said that we were going to stink,” he said — are turning into believers.
Employing his long-held ideology like a minimalist monk on a yoga mat, Rahne reiterated that votes are for other people to count.
“To me, that’s not a big thing,” he said. “We’re focused on going 1-0. We’re focused on doing whatever we can to continue to stack great days of preparation together and see where that can lead us each and every week.”
David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com.