Inside the MEAC · preview

The derby is back: Norfolk State at Old Dominion, first meeting since 2019

The number to know for Saturday isn't Old Dominion's 10-3 from last season. It's one — the number of offensive starters back from that team. For the first time in seven years, Norfolk State crosses town to play Old Dominion, and the version of ODU waiting at Ballard Stadium is mostly a mystery, including to ODU.

Norfolk State at Old Dominion, Saturday, September 5, 6 p.m., S.B. Ballard Stadium, on ESPN+. The only two Division I programs in Norfolk, meeting for the fifth time ever and the first since 2019.

The series says one thing, the scores say another

Old Dominion is 4-0 against Norfolk State, and if you stop reading there, this looks like a formality. Don't stop reading there. Two of the four meetings were one-score games — 27-24 at Dick Price in 2013, 24-21 at Ballard in 2019. The FBS-FCS gap between these two has never been as wide on the field as it looks on paper. The derby has a habit of being a field-goal game.

What ODU actually is right now: unknown, even to ODU

The résumé is real. Ricky Rahne is in year seven, the Monarchs won ten games last season — two of their three losses came against College Football Playoff teams in Indiana and James Madison — and the Sun Belt's coaches picked them second in the East.

But look at what's actually taking the field Saturday. The offensive coordinator left for Memphis; wide receivers coach Kody Cook got promoted into the job. Running back Devin Roche is the lone returning offensive starter. And the quarterback battle just resolved this week: redshirt sophomore Quinn Henicle got the nod over Ryan Huff and Washington State transfer Jaxon Potter. Henicle has started the final game of each of the last two seasons, so he's not a total unknown — but a new starter, running a new coordinator's offense, with ten new faces around him, in a season opener, is a lot of first-time things happening at once.

Norfolk State, meanwhile, has a game of live reps in the bank and film of exactly nothing. Nobody has seen Cook's offense. That cuts both ways — but sloppy is the natural state of openers, and only one team Saturday is playing one.

What travels from 56-0

We said it Sunday and it still holds: beating a Division II opponent by eight touchdowns proves less than the zeros do. What Norfolk State takes across town is the stuff that doesn't depend on the opponent — Deljay Bailey playing within the offense (13-of-20, three touchdowns, zero hero-ball), a defense that chased a shutout into the fourth quarter of a decided game, and 457 yards of doing what it wanted.

This is the first real measurement of the Vick year-two project. Ballard on a Saturday night against a ten-win program is exactly the setting the 56-0 couldn't simulate.

The honest call

ODU should be favored. A ten-win FBS program at home against an FCS opponent is favored every time, roster turnover or not — the Monarchs' two-deep is built from a level of recruiting Norfolk State doesn't have access to. But "should be favored" and "should be comfortable" are different claims. The scores in this series, the ten new starters, the debuting coordinator, the opener rust — all of it points the same direction: closer than the labels.

What to watch: whether NSU's front can make Henicle's first start of a season feel like one, and whether Bailey stays boring in the best way when the defense across from him is finally FBS-sized.

The Breakdown covers this one from afar — Saturday we're credentialed at Zable Stadium for Delaware State at William & Mary. Both games, one 6 p.m. kickoff, and a recap of each on Sunday.