Virginia Tech Vs Old Dominion Preview 2026: TSL Podcast 503

0:00TechSideLine is presented by First Bank and Trust Company, the bank that puts you first. They can meet your banking and financing needs for personal, agricultural, business, commercial, mortgages, and so much more. Visit FirstBank.com to learn more. The monarchs are coming back to town, but can the Hokies get revenge and take the crown? We're previewing the matchup with ODU on episode 503 of the TechSideLine podcast, which starts right now. We're recording on Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 from the TechSolution Studio in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. Today's episode is brought to you by Christine Shepard. I'm your host, Riley Klausen, to my day. Today I'm joined to my left by lead analyst and columnist Chris Coleman, cross the way our founder and general manager will steward and to my right. Senior staff writer Andy Vitter, producing the show Behind the Scenes, as always, is Mr.

1:00Nick Brown. If you're watching the show on YouTube, make sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel and refer the show to a friend. Nick, it sounds like we're reaching almost a milestone in terms of subscribers. Yeah, 13,000 were 100 and about 15 ways. So subscribe, please. It's free. It's super easy and it doesn't hurt you. And will they should also subscribe? Where else? On the website, I was going to say we don't have we don't have 13,000 paid subscribers on the TechSide Live website, but we do have almost 13,000 here on YouTube. And yeah, sign up on TechSideLine.com. I've had a we've had a lot of new people register and subscribe. And they make comments like, wow, you guys do a lot of stuff and it's really good. So 12 bucks a month, try it out. If you don't like it, you're guaranteed to like it. You give you your money back, but we're not going to do that because you're going to like it. Well, we appreciate all the support and today our task is going to be talking about the upcoming matchup between Virginia Tech and old dominion. But before we hop into the preview, Andy, do you have any takeaways from the press conference

2:03earlier this week? Yeah, I thought it was interesting. You know, James Franklin comes out and the first thing he starts talking about the press conference is things they didn't do right in that game. That's a very coach thing to do when you win by 70 and be like, we just worked good enough in this game. Yeah, he wasn't that emphatic about it, but he comes out. He didn't like the penalties. 11 for 93. You think it was a couple of those. He called them drive killers, which is funny in a game where they have one punt and one where they didn't convert it forth down where the pass was there. But I went back and looked and there was a personal foul penalty on that one drive that ended up in the punt. So he was correct. It did kill the drive in that. Otherwise they could have had 80, I guess, is that that's what he was striving for. You know, praise the quarterbacks, but also noted, you know, Grunkamire missed the two deep balls. Those were there. Those were opportunities against better competition when those opportunities present themselves. You got to hit him and, you know, he liked what Bryce Baker did in the back up a role there. Got to a progression in there on the touchdown pass.

3:06Chance Wiggins that they typically don't get that far into that that read. I think it was like the third or fourth read that they had on that play. Also said that, you know, there's a fourth down pass that he missed that was there. He called it a gimmie. And the gimmie is you're supposed to be throwing on there. That's a pass you have to make. So I think, you know, you go back to the game and you see the 45 to nothing. He's arguing for one second to be put back on the clock right before halftime coaching every second of the thing. He's coaching every play of the game as well and not just, you know, satisfied with, you know, what the result was. You know, there's a process to it and different things that could be improved upon. And that's what you need to do because you're not going to play VMI every week. This is going to be a step up in competition. Maryland will be a further step up in competition the week after that. So I think it's, it's what coaches do. And I think it's another sign that, you know, Franklin has been a head coach for quite a while and it shows. I watched this week's Stone by Stone segment and it showed what he was telling the team at halftime. He told him at halftime, he said, I always tell my teams this and none of them listen

4:06to me. It's zero to zero at halftime. I want to see you go out in the second half and treat this game like it's zero to zero. And I think that's why he left the starters in on both sides of the ball for the first drive of the second half to see if they could take those halftime adjustments and approach it with the right mentality. And you know, they did, at least it seemed like they did. Who knows because it's a VMI, right? But, you know, defense got to stop, offense, score to touchdown. So it was real interesting to see how he coached and everything like that in a game like it's such a blowout. The other thing that stood out to me from watching the press conference was a, you know, Cortez Harris is a good interview. He's pretty good in that sense. He is. We're going to need him more this year. Exactly. And for the next four years, like he's going to be a team captain one day. Like he's already starting as a red shirt or excuse me as a sophomore. I guess is how they're called. Second year. Second year. That's two UVA. I know. I know. I'm the roster card guy and they're going freshman sophomore, junior, senior, fifth and sixth. And there is one six year player on this team.

5:09Major, right? Or Cameron route is probably saying, Sherman. Listen let's not fight it. Yeah. But also, he went over sort of scheduling philosophy. And then listen to him talk about it. It does not sound like it's going to be a great non-conference schedule going forward. He said, they always won seven games. That's like, well, okay. What are you going to get in years, who Tech has four ACC home games? You can get three home games and maybe one is good just because of a home and home series. Definitely let the other two are gonna be good. They're gonna be games that they can run over the opponent. I would imagine. That's just gonna be the reality going forward and what the schedule is. So, yeah. And if you think about it, like, they're now playing an extra conference game and then they're required to play one Power 4 conference, non-conference game. So like overall, the schedule is better than it used to be. If you think about it, that's a good idea. Then it used to be like 20 years ago. Right. I think when they first started talking about strength of schedule and the playoff, I think a lot of schools looked at it like, okay, this is an opportunity to play some teams

6:10and prove yourself. And now they've gone away from that. And it feels like inevitably this playoff is gonna go to 24 teams. I don't like it. It's just the way this sport. They do a lot of things in this sport that I don't like. Generally, this is gonna be one of them. I feel like that would open up an opportunity to play some interesting non-conference games or challenge yourself even more in the non-conference because, you know, there's gonna be teams that are fourth, fifth place in their conference getting into this playoff. You know, if you can be in the top 24 and make it, that's a very reasonable goal for Virginia Tech on an annual basis, regardless of what your schedule is. So I think there's an opportunity to challenge yourself more. We'll see if they alter that going forward once this thing actually does inevitably expand. But for right now, I mean, understandable the scheduling philosophy doesn't mean I like it, but that's the way they're gonna do it. Well, let's talk about what's coming up in that step up of competition for Virginia Tech as they take on old Dominion this week. Here's the rundown on the series.

7:12Virginia Tech holds the four to three all time advantage, but they've split the last four with last year being a 45 to 26 win for the monarchs in which they have the 28-nothin lead at halftime. But now as we assess the team this year, they are still under the direction of head coach Ricky Ronnie. We've talked a lot about on this podcast. It's kind of done underrated job. He's been there since 2020, 31 and 33 overall record, but coming off of a 10 and three season. And this week's kind of interesting because James Franklin is going to the first time play one of his former assistants on the opposite sideline as the head coach. Yeah, he took a long time to answer that question. He was trying to think back at his entire coaching career. I feel like it would have been more obvious if he'd done it before. Like if you've done it, you should remember it. You know it, you experienced it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if you look at this series historically, only one of the games has been close. That was the 2022 game that was decided by three points. After that, the next close to this game was a couple of 14 point margins.

8:13So generally whoever wins this game, wins it by a pretty healthy margin. So we'll probably see the same thing on Saturday. Like Virginia Tech should win by double digits, but you never know. But what should Virginia Tech have done last? They were five and a half point favorites in that game last year. So I'm here like, oh, who's going to win by double digits? You'd probably say the Hokies last year and didn't turn out that way. Didn't turn out the same thing in 2018 in that game. So that's why OD was it dangerous because there's always sort of a nothing to lose attitude from the monarchs in this game. And that's why Virginia Tech fans hate these kind of matchups because you win, you take care of business. That's what you're supposed to do. You lose. It's the end of the world. Some state school has bragging rights over you for the near future. J.M.U. still has bragging rights at 2010 game. Liberty had it for a little while and they won that game in 2020, the COVID year, right? So yeah, that's the danger of playing these games

9:15is you don't really get credit for winning them and you get tons of blame for losing them. And that OD game in 2018 was interesting because it came after Virginia Tech scored 60 some points against William and Mary and then beat Florida State in week one and everybody was riding high, right? It's like Fuente something like 22 and eight in his career at Virginia Tech at that point. And the tech was a young team in 2018. You're like, well, we started 2 and 0 and beat Florida State dropped 60 saw him on William and Mary. Just like he dropped 73 on VMI and then ODU comes in and throws a kind of a wet blanket on everything. That 2018 game, I will say people forget that the starting quarterback broke his leg and that game. Like that's sort of a big thing to overcome in the middle. It wasn't just like, oh, that team was not ready and didn't play well. They could have played better obviously, but they also had to deal with like a major change to their offensive operation midway through that thing and the defense. Yeah, that could stop us. You know, that was, yeah, that was the worst Virginia Tech defense.

10:17I think they've had in the last 30 years. Statistically, I think that's true too. Maybe the pit game that same year. Yeah, I mean, that's season from a running standpoint. Yeah, the pit game was just every time pit touched them. I was 14 yard. I think they average 14 years, 13 and a half in the game. But that ODU game was the canary in the coal mine. Where it's like, oh, something is wrong. And you know, that cornerback saying, you know, Caleb Farley, I think Bryce Watts was the other cornerback. Farley turned into an exceptional player. It was the first round draft pick eventually, but that year was really a struggle and that whole defensive operation was really rough. But in that game, I think people forget that Josh Jackson broke his leg midway through and they had to turn to Ryan Willis. And you know, they nearly came back and pulled it off, but just not the firepower to keep up with ODU amazingly. You know, the ODU was a bad football team that year. They went four and eight. They lost six of their first seven games with that only win being against Virginia Tech. What was the quarterbacks name again?

11:20He like went to the seminary. He went to the next year. Yeah, he like went to the seminary didn't he? He threw a pretty fade pattern and they had those two really good receivers that just destroyed them all day long. And they took their shots and went down field and hit it time and time again. It was a great game plan. And they executed it. Those pre-Ricky Ronnie too. They are that but that was 2018. Yeah, he's been there still Bobby Wilder at that point. Yeah. Well, for all the minion, they have had one game on their schedule as well. They defeated Norfolk State, which if anyone didn't know is coach Michael Vick at the helm. Is there anything that you can take from that matchup for them? And James Franklin made it sound like it's going to be on repeat in the training facility this week. They were not good against Norfolk State to be honest with you. Norfolk State's first drive of the game they go right down the field. They're running back breaks off a 35 yard run and he fumbles like at the two yard line. It would have been seven nothing, Norfolk State most likely. Was he hit or was he like celebrating early? He was not he was he was getting wrapped up from behind and they kind of twisted in the guy ripped the ball. Okay. So it was a real fumble.

12:21It was a real fumble. Correct. And in the and that game was it was a 17 to 10 game late in the third quarter. Old Dominion, they didn't get a lot going offensively. Norfolk State was smart. They ran the ball a ton to try to shorten the game to make up for their talent disadvantage. And you know, I'm not going to say they nearly pulled it off because they didn't but they stayed in the game a lot longer than people would have expected. And Old Dominion was not dominant by any stretch of the imagination as you can see from those stats right there. Just to add Blake Larusa was that players? Oh, Blake Larusa. No relation to Tony ice. I don't think so. We'll shout out for the past there. Well, then let's take a look at the old Dominion offense in which their quarterback is featured on the graphic. You saw moments ago. Quinn Hennekel, he has the task of trying to replace Colton Joseph, which I feel like everyone remembers from last year really impressive player. He seems to be a rushing threat in terms of his strategy. Yeah, he is. For his career, he has 91 carries 555 yards, 6.1 yards

13:24per carry, seven rushing touchdowns. Passing 40 of 77, 51.9%, 508 yards, four touchdowns, two interceptions, 119.3 quarterback rating. Those are his career stats. Only through 13 times, 12 or 13 times last week. So it was like the coaching staff didn't really trust him out there. This is going to be a new offensive coordinator, but the same scheme for Odeo, they're going to spread the field and try to be a run heavy team. And they're going to run the quarterback a lot. At least on paper, it seems like they'll run the quarterback a lot. Hennekel, how does 64 yard touchdown run against Virginia Tech in 2014? 2014. 2014. 2014. 2014. He's been there a long time. He's a 12 year player, which is coming these days. Yeah. But yeah, it's, they're very one dimensional on offense as far as the running game is for, you know, there's not a lot of balance. They don't return much at wider see for entitled. And in fact, they're running back as they're only returning start. Rochet, who's a good back preseason, all sunbelt, but they really struggled

14:29up front against Norfolk state. They couldn't block Norfolk state consistently had allowed seven tackles for loss and two sacks against an FCS front. So that Brunitech defensive front that had, well, 18 tackles for loss last week, they should be looking their chops because they're coming up against an offensive line that none of those players have played more than 200 snaps at this level. And there are five new starters playing together for the first time. So that this is not an advanced old dominion offense running coming in here. The scheme concerns me a bit. It's kind of a unique scheme the way they spread you out and try to run it. But the personnel this year is not as good as it was last year. That's the reality of these group of five teams. If you win 10 games, all the FBS teams above you are like, or power five teams are like, you'll just take all your good players here and have them in our roster. We'll have both. And Joseph, I mean, that's, that's going to be infuriating if you're coached that level and you're just constantly having to rebuild like that. To Ronnie's credit and O.D.U. That's happened to them before they have rebuilt a couple of years ago.

15:32Nobody had heard of Colton Joseph. And then all of a sudden he turns into a hot name in the quarterback market and Wisconsin absom he's their starting quarterback and then O.D.U. S go back to the drawing board and find a new guy. So I think they do this. It takes time though. And this is very early in this rebuild on the offense for them. I think it's going to be a big advantage for Virginia Tech. I'm eager to see what this defensive front for the Hokies does against again, a step up in competition. You have to do it against a team that probably, yeah, VMI Chris said it last week should probably be division two. Yeah. Where they're at. It's an actual division one team, you know, group of five, group of six. I always screw that up now. That's it's a group of six now. Group of six team. Yeah, they need a better name and better name. Nonpower for that's not that's clunky to come up with better names for this. Legends and leaders or something like that. Yeah, great stuff. But yeah, it's a rebuilding year offensively for O.D.U. And especially catching them early. I think that's a lot is going to be still need to be hired out for the monarchs.

16:37You kind of mentioned that when you look as well, they had to bring in a lot of players themselves because so much was taken by those other teams. How do you think early on in the season for both Virginia Tech and the others trying to adjust and get everyone building chemistry can play a part in these early games? I think it's advantage for Virginia Tech because a lot of those transfers are already very familiar to James Franklin and his coaching staff because a number of them came from Penn State and others or guys that they recruited out of high school and maybe didn't go to Penn State right away. They were still very familiar with them and the player skill sets and everything like that. It's kind of more of a hodgepodge at all dominion. I mean, they've got 40 transfers on their team either from four year colleges or the Juco ranks. I've got a couple of a few guys from the SEC. They've got one guy from Averyt and Danville, which is the Division 3 program. So it's kind of a malgration of talent from all over the place.

17:37You don't necessarily just snap your fingers and that becomes a well-oil machine right at the beginning. It was certainly not a well-oil machine for them in week one against North State. That's a little bit about the offense for Old Dominion as Virginia Tech will look to take them on Saturday. But will before we talk about the defense, there are some important numbers that we want to go over this week going into this matchup. Well, I don't know if they're important, they're entertaining. So first of all, I know you guys haven't had time to think about it because you've been talking, but the one six-year player on Virginia Tech's team is an offensive lineman. Yeah, I looked it up to the point I wanted to say. He's starting. Montavia is counting him. Yes, Saint Germain is a fifth year guy. So this segment here is StatTime with Scott Glasner and this episode is presented by the Hockey Way. The Hockey Way is having a pre-game tailgate before the Maryland game. Is it pronounced CQ Stadium? SEC, you anybody know?

18:38Is that the name of it? It's not Burge Stadium anymore? No, it's sponsored. So it's SEC Stadium. We'll call it CQ. I think it's a credit union probably. The SEC stands for something. It's a different name five years from now. Don't worry about remembering it. It'll be five. Now let's not mock credit unions because Virginia Tech's got a credit union logo on their field now. So let's see. So they have 200 slots for this tailgate, which is on their track, Maryland's track, which is just a really short walk to the stadium. Really nice. So tailgate starts at 3.30, runs to 7 o'clock, and of the 200 spots are only about 50 left. So I think they're going to go pretty quick in this coming week for 125 bucks. You get food. I think a couple of drinks, live music, quote unquote, hokey hospitality. You know, so, and I am partnering with Tech Solutions who this, of course, they've got the naming rights to this studio and their major tech sideline sponsor.

19:40Matt Talant and I are splitting the cost of a sponsorship for this tailgate. So I'll be there at the tailgate and also Matt will for a tech solution. So come up and thank him for his sponsorship tech sideline. So if you're interested, go to the hokeyway.org, learn more and join us there. And let's get into stat time with Scott Glesner. The last time Virginia's tech started a season with two straight in-state opponents was 1981. Richmond and William and Mary. I was in high school. You know, talk about complaining about non-conference. Yeah, that was Chris was not born. Andy held her you in 1981. I was too with that point. Andy spit out his past fire that that out of comfort schedule was so bad. Of course, they weren't in a conversation. The record for Virginia Tech through the first two games of the season, and let's pay attention to this one, for points scored and margin of victory is 98 first two games of

20:41the season in 1905, which we all remember well. The hokey started out with an 86 to nothing win, followed by a 12 to nothing win. So you want to watch total points at 73 against VMI. If they have 25, they tie the record for points in the first two games of the season more than that and they break it. Now let's talk about total yardage. The total yardage on record for games one and two of a season. The record is 1,160 yards in 1993, 485 versus bowling green, and 675 yards the next week against Pittsburgh. And they rumped over the Johnny Major's lead team. Hokey's had 500 yards rushing that day. Yeah, it was crazy. So the hokey's had 618 yards of offense versus VMI, so it will take 541 yards against ODE to tie that mark, 542 to break it.

21:43This is a painful stat, which will hopefully repair itself a little bit on Saturday. ODE has converted red zone trips into points to last 14 times against Virginia Tech. That tracks. Wow. Yeah, sure does. I mean, just last year. It seems like all of them last year. So the 14 for 14 was all during the Brent pry era, 2022 to 2025, 10 touchdowns in those 14 trips. Guys, how many touchdowns and how many red zone trips last year alone? 5 for 5. 45 is a 6, 6 for 6. 6 for 6. Wow. It's interesting this scored 45 points, and it was all from inside the red zone. Interesting, because I thought I would have recalled like one or two long touchdown passes. Maybe they were just a little long passes that got into the red zone and then they scored. Yeah, same here. So that's how it took. Yeah, because I remember that game so clearly. Because, you know, I double checked it.

22:43And Chris, you alluded to this in your preview. O2U has rushed for over 200 yards in each of the last three meetings and four of the last five. Virginia Tech has only rushed for over 200 yards once in the last five meetings in 2024. So you wrote in your preview that it is critical that they stopped the run. I mean, I know that's a football truism, but, but, yeah. Come on. O2U running for over 200 yards against Virginia Tech, like over and over and over. That should not be happening. So we haven't stopped. Tech hasn't stopped O2U in the red zone since Bud Foster was defensive coordinator. Is that correct? Oh, no, the three games. Four games, 2022 through 2025. Okay, so all of them. And they played in 2019 at the end. Which was Bud Foster's last year as defensive coordinator. So Bud, what is your secret? Stop being on the red zone. Well, that's it. That one's a bar. Yeah. I found this stat interesting. We're getting close to the end here.

23:44Virginia Tech has scored a touchdown at each of the first four quarters of the season. Of course, they had a lot of points against me. The three longest streaks are 10 quarters. And we all remember that well. It was in 1922 against Hampton, Sydney, King College and the first half of William and Mary. Now, twice they've scored touchdowns in eight quarters in a row. Then the first, you know, the first eight quarters of the season, 1993. And in 2019, so I looked up to 2019, eight touchdowns and eight quarters. The Hokies started that season losing 35 to 28 to Boston College. So it was 7.7, 7.7 points. The next week they beat ODU 30 to 17. And they had 7.7 points, 10 points and seven points. So that's, I found it interesting. That would have been the season I would have thought that it was that fast. I would have probably challenged you. Yeah. Yeah. So let's see the five last one.

24:48The five previous times Virginia Tech has won by 70 or more points. The average score of the next game has been 8.8 to 3.6. Well, I think we can, we're going to aim a little bit higher this time. The only one time did VT score over 20 points in the ensuing game after scoring 70 plus in again in 1922. 21 another win over Maryland after beating Catholic 73 to nothing. So always an interest in stat time when you go all the way back to the Teddy Roosevelt administration. It just kills. Wisconsin got this whole database. He's always going back to these games in the early 1900s that I'm like, I think I'm going to put up a quote unquote modern era restriction on even though it is interesting. So that is stat time. Scott Glasner brought to you by the Hockey Way. Visit the Hockey Way.org and check out the details on the tailgate and hope to see you there. Yeah. And one more note as long as we're kind of talking about the schedule with it.

25:49This is the second to last meeting between these two teams that's on the schedule. Next will be in 2030. That's after they've played four years in a row of the last four. So we're looking forward to seeing what this Saturdays will bring in next. We'll talk about old Dominions defense and what the Hockies will need to do. But first let's hear from our sponsor, Christine Shepherd. In real estate, it's not just about buying or selling. It's about finding a place that truly feels like home. That's what drives Richmond based realtor Christine Shepherd with joiner fine properties. With more than 30 years of experience building relationships, she brings a thoughtful and highly personalized approach along with a designer's eye that helps buyer see potential and sellers showcase their homes beautifully. As part of a proud fourth generation Virginia Tech family, Christine leads with a deep sense of community and loyalty, helping clients not just find a house, but truly find where they belong. If you're considering your next move, trust Christine Shepherd for a real estate experience

26:52rooted in expertise, design and genuine Hockie heart. Well, thank you to Christine Shepherd for sponsoring this episode. And as we continue, when we look at this old Dominion defense, I think something you see right away, there seems to be quite a bit of experience for the monarchs. Plenty of experience and also continuity. Same scheme for his entire tenure, you know, 335 Blake Sealer. Siler. Siler as a defensive coordinator. Franklin has familiarity with who was on the Kansas state when he was there. Yep. And he's a very good coach. I think he's one of the most underrated guys around the country. Remind me of old school Virginia Tech, like in the 90s when Virginia Tech had a unique scheme and they recruited specifically to that scheme. And it was difficult for opponents to prepare because they didn't see a lot of schemes like that. And that's what this 335 was like for ODU. It allowed it's tough to tell where the free hitter is coming from a lot of times with three safeties. It helps them mix up their coverages, hide where their blitzes are coming from.

27:53And they really rely on creating havoc. You know, they're for a forced turnover since 2022 1921 1725. You know, last year they finished 19th in the cut or excuse me, 9th in the country in forced turnovers. Tacos for loss each year. They're always in the top half of college football. Last year they were 13th with 90s apples for loss and they had 12 last week against Norfolk State. This is a team they put a lot of smaller guys on the field, but they're fast and you don't know what direction they're going in a lot of time. So it's can be difficult for a young offense with young offensive linemen and an inexperienced quarterback to pick up this defense. And that's kind of what Virginia Tech has. So I think I'm not worried about the personnel matchup of old Dominion's offense versus a Virginia Tech defense, but it's a little bit more difficult on the other side of the ball on paper because the scheme brings a lot of things to the table that it can be tricky for younger players and Tacos pretty young going offense. Yes, this is the first, I mean, for everybody, but the first real test for this offensive

28:54line. How can they handle that scheme? How can they handle blocking guys that are as big as they are? And PMI is like, okay, just overwhelm the sky is much smaller than some of those holes you can drive trucks through last week. Jeffrey Overton, I don't think he was touched on the two touchdown runs that he had. I don't think you're going to get that this week. I think it'll be a little bit more difficult. Oh, line is still my biggest question mark on offense. So I want to see them go out there and physically overwhelm somebody else that's a little bit more of a challenge and be able to handle the different calls and responsibilities and going up against a unique front like this. When you look in terms of the personnel, at least what sticks out from the past and currently this year, it seems like they have a strong safety tandem as well as the defensive line in Deandre Lynch led the team in Tacos this past week. Mario Easterly is a good safety. You let him in Tacos last year. Yeah. Second team preseason all sun belt. Sun belt right? Yeah. Yeah. He always takes care of my release days.

29:54A Zion Frank corner back again. Second team preseason all sun belt. Chris Forbes defensive line. Second team preseason all sun belt. A guy I really like is linebacker Jackson forest. Odie who's always got like a good linebacker play and there's always seems to be like a guy who really comes in as a true freshman in place. Well, on forest doesn't start for them. And in fact, hasn't started a game in his career, but he played over 300 snaps as a true freshman last year. I'd like a grade of like a 86 on PFF and he was really good, you know, when they're first game last year. For an entire year. Yeah. That's a true freshman. Yeah. So, and if he's not starting, that says quite a bit about their linebacker core as a whole. I know the guy he's behind on the depth chart only played in one game last year because he was injured. Of course, that was a Virginia Tech game, but he was a second team all sun belt the year before that. They do a good job on defense. Oh, Odie, you does. It's a unique scheme. It's not necessarily a scheme that I think would translate it a program like Virginia Tech, but for all dominion, I think it's a really good scheme because it makes them unique.

30:58And if you're all dominion and you've got, it's tough to retain players. You don't have the biggest payroll in the world. So you're at a personnel disadvantage to a certain extent. You've got to make yourself as difficult to prepare for as possible. And they do that with his defense. So I just think they're, I think the job Ronnie has done there is very underrated when you consider the resources he has. Who was the guy they had last year? Was it Jason Henderson? Was that his name? Yeah, but he was hurt. Yeah, he played a little bit last year, but he had those devastating injuries, but he was a great player. But he was really good the year before and they kept him on the roster, which was pretty impressive. He had a great career there, unfortunately, just ended. He was a guy that I was always like, man, if you just hit the transfer portal, I can finally get an inside line back here for James. So you're talking about this defense for Odea, you're trying to really create some chaos, especially against a younger office. So what do you think the Hokies will need to do offensively with the younger staff to make it all work? I think they've got to identify where the pressure is coming from because Odea, we'll use those

32:01crazy alignments to bullets from a lot of places and hide their, hide disguise their cover, just disguise their blitzes and their twists and all that stuff. And we've got to remember that Virginia Tech starts three red shirts off more juniors, I guess, technically, but three guys who were their second year on the field, Kyle Altuner, Aiden Lynch, Justin Terry, and Terry's the least experienced of all of them at left tackle. So there's still plenty of youth in an experience on the Virginia Tech offensive line. What is good is that most of those guys half played together before, so there is cohesiveness. But when you're playing VMI, it's really difficult to tell how far you've progressed as an offensive line from one year to the next. This defense is going to let us know this week. Like if Virginia Tech goes out there and dominates them, that's a good sign because this is a good defense. Yeah, I want to see what are they like against a defense that maybe could dictate to them

33:02a little bit about what they can do against VMI. You can just choose whatever you want on the play sheet. It's going to work. I think it's a little bit more important in this one. What do you want to establish? What do you have to establish to make the defense reacting so you can do other stuff in the offense? Just stiffer test. I keep coming back to that same point, but that's exactly what this week is. Yeah, and you got to take advantage of your size with those, you know, these texts got a pretty big offensive line. They'll go with two tight ends a lot. A lot of times they'll line those tight ends up on one side of the field. We saw that against VMI last week. Two tight ends on the left with both their hands in the dirt. So it kind of creates like a really big unbalanced line. I'm waiting to see a Gruckmeyer throw like a boot off that. We didn't see that last week. We might see that this weekend and weeks to come. But I think you've got to take advantage of your size because ODEU is going to come out with the redown lineman. And then one of their linebackers is only six feet, two hundred ten pounds. So they're a little bit undersized. But you would expect that because they rely on quickness.

34:05But that's something you've got to take advantage of. If you're Virginia Tech, you've got to get a hat on a hat and take advantage of your size and strength advantage. So I think you've watched a fair amount of film of Ethan Gruckmeyer. I mean, I know he's not a runner, but how is he when the play breaks down? He can improvise. It's just he's good at going through his reads though and getting the ball out to his check down. So he doesn't sit back there very long and take a lot of hits and things like that. I mean, yeah, he got sacked some last year because he was a freshman, but he's not going to be that type of quarterback at Virginia Tech. But you're also not going to see very much option. I mean, curious is how much he can improvise and run when he needs to. I mean, he's probably not going to be a pop Watson out there taking off down the field. But, you know, even non like super mobile quarterbacks have to take the opportunity to run every now and then just keep defenses honest to know that that's in there that you can go to. So we'll be interested to see if he does that at least some Norfolk state had a little

35:06bit of success with a quarterback draw last week when I was watching some highlights of that game. So, you know, I wouldn't like again, I wouldn't expect a lot of option, but every now and then, you know, if you get them in a third and five or something like that and it looks like they're playing pass, you could surprise them with something like that. And he should be capable of doing that. It's just not something I don't think you want to do very often. So to bring in the defense as well as her winding down to the preview section here, it sounds like overall the summary is this is a week for Virginia Tech to play that next level of competition and maybe give us an idea of what they're working with. We should have a better idea after this week. I think we'll have a better idea about the offensive line and the offense in general after this week considering old dominion's personnel issues on offense, so many new players. I think it'll probably be another week after that before we learn more about the Virginia Tech defense. Yeah, I think to truly know what you are, you have to play a team that's capable of beating you. I don't think VMI was that. This one still, I think it's 18 point line, 18 and a half, something like that.

36:08That's larger than it's been in the last couple of years. So, just still kind of a mismatch here. A lot of people buying into the Virginia Tech opener, just how they looked at that one. But I agree. I think Maryland is where you really start to tell like, okay, that's an even close to an even playing field. Do you see my locks lead this week? Oh, God. What is it this week? It's like, all right. You're here, you're getting prepared to play Toledo. It's like you're playing Yukon this week. He said the wrong team. Just every week he talks. I have more and more faith in Virginia Tech winning that match up just based on the head coaching. But yeah, it was pretty rough. Yeah. Well, with the preview now all laid out, let's go to the predictions. Who do you think wins this game? Now wait a minute, let me start with talking about last week's prediction. Sorry to jump in here. Yeah. So, last week's results we had. So, as a reminder, in our game preview articles, which is about to post soon, it's not up yet. As long as you're registered and logged into the website, you can go in and predict the score.

37:12You can participate this year. And there'll also be a tiebreaker in there. And I think this week's tiebreaker is Ethan Grunkamayer's passing yardage. So last week we had 1,522 people participate and only one person picked 7-E3-3, picked the score correctly. And that's the only one. I'm impressed that one person accepted it. 73-3 is a pretty unique score. It is a score agami. It was a unique score. Was it a real score? Yeah, wow. So, in Virginia Tech history, it's happened. Yeah, football history. There were, I looked at it. There were about 20 to 25 people who picked Virginia Tech to score 70 plus. So, Hoki Power picked 73-3 and a couple other users picked 72-3. So they were really close. That's some serious bragging rights for this week for those guys. If I were them, I'd be on the boards all week. I should get a special badge. So, staff rankings out of 1,522 entries, David Cunningham finished the highest. He picked 66-7, which I thought was, wow, David, or really, if Hoki is going to go to

38:14town, and they did. So, he came in at number 136. Nick picked 59-3. He was number 235. Chris, you picked 58-7, which was number 525. I picked 55-6, which was number 590. And Andy was close behind that. He picked 52-3 and that was number 608, because as we all know, Andy is a hater. When I got to the... Actually, after I turned the picks in, I almost immediately regretted my score prediction. But then when I got to the game, and I saw the warm-ups, I'm going, oh no. This is not going to be close. Plus, I didn't realize Franklin was quite as cut-throat as he lost. I should have known that because he ran it up in some of those games. He has a history of doing that. So, Beamer would have won that game 56-6 to nothing. Yeah. Hoki wouldn't have scored because we wouldn't have even tried to return that pot. He would have just been like, just get away from it. Yes, that's true. Or, so, catch it. None of those players. But he definitely, the second half, it wouldn't have been the starters go out there in the second half. It would have been take-a-nee.

39:14We're just going to run the ball. Franklin was like, we're going to run the entire offense in the second half. I should have known better, but definitely what I got to the field. First of all, just the sheer number of staff and personnel on the field. I think Virginia Tech had more staffers than BMI had players on the roster. You get them. It was just the sides of the field were unbalanced with how many people were out there. But it's just like, I saw that. I go, oh man, eight touchdowns has no, that's definitely going over that. And the score is definitely going to be higher than what I predicted. And that was out of like, what, 1,500-ish. 1,522. Okay. So, for regular folks, you can change your prediction right up to game time because we publish our preview. We're playing in a disadvantage here. One hour behind your back here. What if we find out about a major injury on Friday? Like that would happen to you. Plus, all the fans get to hear our spot on analysis. Yeah, exactly. They're well educated. So, anyway, that's been a lot of fun. So, back to you. Yeah, great reminder that you can participate yourself as well.

40:16We'll buy your cell later in the week. You can participate in that on the website too. And we'll give some shout outs to some of the top there. Let's go back to this one. O-D-U versus Virginia Tech. Who wins it and what's the score? I've got a 31-14 Virginia Tech. I don't think the tech defense will have much trouble. Although I do with that running game in the quarterback, I think O-D-U will probably pop a couple at some point that'll allow them to get a couple of touchdowns. But I don't think they're going to be able to drive consistently against Virginia Tech as unbalanced as they are offensively. I think their defense will present some trouble for the Hokies eventually, especially early in the game. But I think Tech will eventually pull away just with a talent advantage. So, I've got a 31-14. Should be a good crowd. The game sold out earlier this week. I think there were some people on the fence. And then I think they attended the old dominion game. And they're like, wow, that was... You mean VMI. VMI. Yeah, and then I think they attended the VMI game. They're like, wow, that was really fun. I think I'll go back next week. So, 31-14, you don't have them covering them.

41:17I guess I know. 18 points. I had 33-13, I think. I do have them covering. I think this game is going to be kind of like two years ago in Norfolk, where O-D-U was breaking in a new quarterback. It was obvious that they were breaking in a new quarterback in Virginia Tech, which is the better team and rolled it up on them. And I don't think they're going to score it. 70 this week, but I do think the offense was on a roll. And I think they continue to score pretty well. Over 30 points in this one. Comfortable win. I like the Hokies. Yes, so we've got David's prediction is 35-17. Mine is... Also, well, that'd be a push on the cover, depending on what it ends up being. Right. Mine's 34. That really matters, here. Of course. Mine's 34 to 17. So, we're all in the 30s against the team. And it ends in range. And I know we've talked about this a lot, but outside of the matchups of this particular game, I'm just kind of fascinated by the recent games in the series. We talked earlier about the 2018 game

42:18where you used to phrase Canary in the coal mine, and I used it in my comments when I made my prediction that if went to was 21 and 8 before that game, Virginia Tech was number 13 in the country, and that pretty much broke the program for what they went 22 and 23 after that. And then you looked at, of course, the prior regime, it started and ended with losses to ODU. So it's funny how what a prominent role ODU has played in Virginia Tech football in the last six, seven years. And Ricky Ronnie's been there. This is his third Virginia Tech coach that he's faced. So you would expect more turmoil in a program like ODU, but no, they've had the same guy. I think he does a good job there. And I'm a little surprised he hasn't gotten interest from somewhere else for a bigger part. He's a one the league yet or played for a league championship. I think you need that. I don't think he's played for it. I don't think he has. I think if you're at the sun belt, I think you need to win the league to get a 10-ter. They're in Jammu's division. Yeah, I feel like in the American,

43:20I think you can do that if you don't win it, but you've got to be playing on that championship Sunday. Where's Saturday? And I think some people, some people look at overall record for a coach and they don't consider the resources that he's got. Sort of like Matt Campbell at Iowa State. It took years for somebody to hire him. Right. You got to understand that that program has never been any good before he was there. And he's so, it's like people with resources. People that don't get excited like, oh, Dave Clawson, why do you want to hire Dave? Look at his career record. It's like, look at where he was at. We're close. Right? And nobody else has done that there. And nothing with Ronnie is, his overall record is not great, but he also like came in there and they had the COVID year immediately and he did not have a season. That's kind of hard to say. It's like, well, he's 31, whatever is overall record. 31, 33, 33 overall, but he overcame some difficult circumstances. Try selling that to a mass fan base as your head coaching hire. It's like the nuance is going to be lost at a certain point.

44:20And also there's like a Virginia Tech does happen to go out and roll this week that I think they'll be ahead of schedule. Because I do think that I don't think highly of the ODU offense from a person else that want to share, but their defense is good. So Virginia Tech could actually go out there and put up like 40 plus in this game and win the game by like 30. I think they'd be a little bit ahead of schedule and let the positive vibes continue. Also, I've been mentioned in the outdated line. I looked at it, now it's 19 and a half. Oh, so it started at 14 and 19 and a half now. This is what happened last week. It opened at 50 and a half and then just went up like a media by like five or six. I don't even know how you put a line on that one last week. Yeah, it's, I don't, I hesitate to attach too much importance to this game. But by the same token, Ronny's had the benefit of coaching against Justin Fuente, who I think was a good pair of football coach, but couldn't keep a roster together and had issues with getting his teams to play consistently.

45:20Brim Pride was Brim Pride, very unorganized program. This is a completely different coach, coaching staff approach to the game. So I think, you know, we're all picking conservatively. 17 to 20 point wins, that kind of thing. If it comes out to be something like 45 to seven, yeah, ahead of schedule, but I also think it will say something about how the Virginia Tech program is now structured and operating under a guy with our proven track record. Who is in a way better CEO of a program than Fuente and Pride were? Couldn't agree more. I mean, I just think Virginia Tech seems much more cohesive as a program now. And you know, they're still fairly young as a team, but eventually they know that's gonna trickle down and probably is already trickling down already. We just only have one game of evidence so far. I thought an interesting comment on our message were shortly after the game was by GC Hoki 34, who's a basketball guy. And he said, he said, but you know, that said, I said, I'm not a football guy, but I watched that football team against VMI.

46:22I know, granted it's VMI and they were probably running a lot of relatively vanilla stuff. But he said, I didn't see a lot of looking over to the sideline or looking at each other during plays. He was basically making the point that he was watching a team that looked like it knew what it was doing. And I thought that was an interesting comment. And he's a former college basketball coach. Yeah, I mean, put a pin in it because it's VMI. But I thought it was an interesting comment. Absolutely. Nick, do you have any thoughts on how this game ends up? I don't think the players that were here last year are gonna take this game lightly. And they're not gonna walk out onto that field with a lot of friendly feelings towards the menu to say the least. Also, this being the second of last time that these two teams meet the scheduled out, of course. I mean, it's kind of imperative that Virginia Tech ends it on a two game winning streak against the Monarchs, cause like we've noted, it's been a 500 record against Odee.

47:24Which is pretty crazy to say. Well, that's the predictions. No way, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, I literally just popped it my head as soon as you start to say 38 to 10, I believe is what I wrote down. That's an additional touchdown added on to what I really think is gonna happen because last week they blew my 59 points out of the water. So I throw on another touchdown there, 38 to 10. So everyone going with Virginia Tech for this week and once again, go participate on the website. You can put your score prediction and get a shout out if you're towards the top as well. Well, that's the preview for Old Dominion versus Virginia Tech. Before we move on, I do wanna talk about the ACC since our last podcast, there was one more game in that first week, SMU in Florida State, which was a crazy event and having a light not go on in the stadium had the delay at a couple hours, but we saw those two teams play. Florida State's fall on a part, man. They can't turn their lights on on their stadium anymore. Like I said, without any money, they forgot to pay their power bill, right? I think when you're plus four in turnover margin

48:28playing at home on a Monday night, you should win the football game, but they couldn't do it. And I think if that's an even turnover margin game, it's a 21 or 28 point SMU win or something like that. Florida State's quarterback is Ashendannial enough said. Yeah, I think not only plus, plus four in the turnover, I think two of those were in the red zone. Thank you. They missed a field goal. They jumped off sides on a Florida State field goal extended a drive and I think Florida State scored a touchdown. So many things that SMU did in that game to try to give it away in Florida State is like, no, thank you. We don't want this game. You take it. SMU still wins on the road. I think it's, I think I see the path that Florida State's going on here. And they are off this week, but then they play Alabama an easy one central Arkansas, then they play Virginia, Louisville, and Miami to two of those. So maybe Virginia doesn't have the toughest schedule on the ACC. I mean, the Florida State's is tough, but it's all front loaded too.

49:30It gets easier. Well, they play Clemson after that, which who knows what Clemson is like, but then it gets easier in the back half. But if I'm Florida State, I, and you're not happy with Norvel. I don't think you let him get to the back half of the season. Like, oh, he rallied and got you to a bowl game. No, no, no. This is over with now. And I think I don't think he survives this. I got a big laugh out of, so Andy did his 10 things article yesterday and. Well, comments, a lot of people coming in on the power ballot ranking. So that's good. I'm going to go through the public. I David edit it. And he's like, I don't recognize any of those songs. I know you don't, but you should. They're, they're great songs. Come on. So anyway, he's got a section about Florida State and SMU. And he says, SMU turned it over four times, including twice in the red zone, missed the field goal, jumped off sides on an FSU field goal to extend the drive, outgained FSU by 251 yards and still one by three. Or to put it better, any embeds a tweet from a guy named Alec Loer, who says, SMU in a dog fight with SMU, while Florida State's also out there.

50:33Pretty much. He put that very succinctly. It's funny that David had never heard of any of your power ballots. I remember when Evan Hughes was our podcast host, he had never watched the movie office base. Oh, yeah. I gave him to watch it. Let's heck about that. I was like, dude, you're fired unless you watch it. You know, so are we going to go there? Should I list the power ballots? People can go on there. Yeah. Let's not bog down the podcast. Yeah. I mean, subscribe to CSL to read Andy's pop culture. Yeah. Exactly. Why you subscribe to CSL? Well, first of all, I have a very narrow definition of power balance. It's got to be like an 80s hair band that like I would agree with that. I think I look at some list and they had like purple rain as number one. I'm like, listen, I'm a Minnesota and I will defend prints and purple rain to my death. I don't really consider that a power battle either. It's got to be like 80s hair band that like, you know, normally they rock really hard by this one. They're just like, no, we're going to slow it down and you have the light around and you're playing with it. That's a power ballot to me. So my column, my narrow definition, fair enough.

51:34It's more reason to go subscribe, but last, you know, hopefully it is. I don't know. This is where you're selling point. Are there any other games in the ACC this week that might catch your attention besides Virginia Tech's? Torch Tech Tennessee. Yeah. I'd like to see the LJakets bounce, but yeah, the LJakets challenged themselves in the non-conference. I respect it. Now, they do better against ranked teams. They do against unranked teams. That's true. Their lines looked a mess last week. You got this column right? They got thrashed at the line of scrimmage. So if they don't improve that, then that's preseason ranking for them in the top half of the ACC. And they magically has a graphic with Georgia Tech's football schedule. Matching. Very good work, Nick. I think I'll be an interesting one. Just see how they respond after that first game. Yeah. So they'll lose this week and then when they're next to most likely and go to the match, and then we'll figure out more about them after that. So that might be an interesting one as we got an ACC versus a ranked opponent there. But we've mentioned a lot about TechSideLine.com. You should go subscribe there, but what can we expect coming up there?

52:36Well, I'll have an inside the numbers tomorrow, although I don't know the subject matter yet. I guess I'll figure that out between now and tomorrow. Regular week of content. Well, Virginia Tech had the highest team PFF grade across all of college football against the MI. I should certainly hope so. So you can figure out somewhere to throw that in. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, I'll have a practice report tonight Wednesday night and mailbag Thursday. So if you want to question and go to TechSideLine and put a response to my mailbag solicitation post on there. Nick, what do we have on the audio video? Friday Q&A on Friday. I'm going to work backwards towards today. So you got the Friday Q&A Bud Foster in the afternoon on Thursday by or sell, which will also be on the audio I promise. That was completely on me for not quadruple checking that it posted on Spotify and Apple music last week. So yes, that will go up tomorrow around 10 a.m. and then of course today, the preview podcast, we had the recap podcast, which I was really proud of, hit 10,000 views, which

53:37is absurd. We haven't had a double, yeah, 10,000 plus view video in a long, long, long, long time. People are excited. Yeah. Talking with Teal is probably going to reach it as well, which is insane, which we recorded yesterday. So go ahead, watch them all, subscribe, fire it up. Yeah. Well, we're in football season. We got everything you need right here at TechSideLine. But thank you so much for watching this episode number 503 of the TechSideLine podcast. For Chris Coleman, we'll stew it. Andy Bitter and Nick Brown behind the scenes. I'm Riley Klaus St. So long for now.