Inside the Sun Belt · preview

Old Dominion goes to App State with two conference losses already

Old Dominion has scored 47 points in its last three games.

Fourteen of them were not scored by the offense. Daevon Iles returned a fumble 23 yards against East Carolina, and Devin Roche returned a punt 78 yards at Georgia State. Take those two plays out and the Monarchs have put up 33 points in three weeks, which is eleven a game.

How each of the three went

Against East Carolina at Ballard, where we were credentialed, Old Dominion scored 17 points in the second quarter and nothing in the other three. We wrote at the time that the whole night fit inside one quarter. One of those touchdowns was the Iles fumble return. Quinn Henicle threw for two yards after halftime.

Against James Madison a week later, the Monarchs lost 46-20 at home. That is the one game of the three where every point came off the offense, two touchdowns and two Nathanial Eichner field goals, and it is also the one they lost by 26.

At Georgia State on Saturday, the offense scored three points. A 21-yard Eichner field goal in the first quarter was all of it. Roche's punt return made it 10, by which time it was already 42-3. Old Dominion finished with 146 yards of total offense. Henicle went 8-of-15 for 49.

Where that leaves them

Old Dominion is 1-4 and 0-2 in the Sun Belt, which is last in the East Division. The only win is the 31-10 over Norfolk State on September 5, and that is now five weeks old.

The quarterback job has not settled either. Henicle has started throughout, Ryan Huff threw the touchdown to Leon Haughton Jr. against James Madison, and Huff was 3-of-8 for 18 yards at Georgia State. Two quarterbacks splitting an offense that is averaging eleven points is not a rotation, it is a search.

App State is the wrong week for this

The Mountaineers are 3-1 and they have not played a conference game yet, so Saturday is their Sun Belt opener and they get it at home.

They are also rested. App State last played on September 26 and had this past Saturday off, so Old Dominion is walking into a team with two weeks of preparation for them.

The result worth sitting with is from September 12. App State went to Greenville and beat East Carolina 27-24. East Carolina then came to Ballard a week later and beat Old Dominion 20-17. That is not proof of anything on its own, and it is the closest thing to a common opponent either team has.

App State's only loss was 41-31 at NC State. Their other wins are 55-3 over Maine and 26-21 over Charlotte, so the Charlotte game says they can be held under 30 and the NC State game says they will score on a power-conference defense.

What a good day looks like

Score first, and hold it. Old Dominion led 3-0 at Georgia State and kept that lead for five minutes and 38 seconds, which is the entire time the Monarchs have spent ahead in the last two games. Against James Madison they never led at all. Playing from behind is what has turned each of these into a rout.

Finish a drive. Eichner has been the most reliable thing on this team and that is the problem, because field goals are what a stalled drive produces.

Keep it close into the fourth. The last three have been 20-17, 46-20 and 42-10, and the second and third of those were decided long before the end.

So what happens Saturday

App State should win and probably comfortably. They are better, they are home, they have had two weeks, and the opponent has scored eleven points a game since September.

What Old Dominion needs out of Saturday is not the result. It is evidence that the offense can produce a touchdown drive against a Sun Belt defense, because Georgia Southern comes to Ballard on Thursday night of next week on ESPN2, and that is the one night this season the Monarchs get a national audience and a home crowd at the same time.

Kickoff is 1pm Saturday at Kidd Brewer Stadium, on ESPN+.