Monarchs team hold nothing back in first scrimmage

ODU replicates game-day schedule for scrimmage

Tuesday afternoon, coach Bobby Wilder and his staff attempted to replicate a game-day approach in advance of that night's scrimmage.

The players were encouraged to visit the training room if necessary.

The team ate together at 2 p.m. Pre-game meetings took place.

At 3:45, they headed out of their practice facility and made their way across campus, replicating the 15-minute Monarch March that will take place on game days.

They had an hour to get ready to take the field. And at 6 p.m., there was a kickoff.

"We need to refine it all," Wilder said. "We even need to learn how to conduct ourselves during halftime and what that time frame is going to feel like and how we're going to handle it in the locker room."

When the players arrived, they found lockers set up like a game day, with uniforms hanging in each stall. The coaches even dressed the part.

The Monarchs went so far as to bring in college game officials for the evening and played with the game clock and the play clocks operational.

For more on Tuesday night's scrimmage, visit ODUBlitz.com.

The Pilot also live-blogged from the event, which was closed to the public. Enter the blog.

Stadium surface appears faster than practice one

The first thing linebacker Jake Sweedyk noticed Tuesday when the Monarchs practiced at Foreman Field for the first time was the field itself.

"I think it plays faster than the practice field," Sweedyk said. "The artificial grass doesn't seem quite as long over here and it seems like it's easier to dig your cleats in and get a fast start."

That's somewhat shocking to coach Bobby Wilder.

"We ordered the same playing surface for both fields," Wilder said.

Sweedyk said he wasn't the only player who felt a slight difference.

The AstroTurf GameDay Grass 3D has been down for months, which gave the surface ample time to settle.

The Monarchs will scrimmage four times at Foreman Field over the next two weeks in preparation for their season opener. Offensive lineman Ryan Jensen said it will probably take that many times to get rid of the "goose bumps" that many players have every time they walk into the place.

"When I came in here for media day last week, the goose bumps were huge, just standing off my arms," Jensen said. "I told one of my teammates when we were in the locker room dressing, 'Can you just imagine what 20,000 people in that place is going to sound like?'

"I'll probably throw up a little from the excitement. And I've never thrown up before a game before."

Students hoping for ODU tickets get OK to camp out

Old Dominion is preparing for a Sunday night camp-out.

A limited number of student tickets to the school's first football game become available at the Ted Constant Convocation Center at 10 a.m. Monday, and ODU has announced it will allow students to begin lining up behind the Constant Center at 7 p.m. Sunday.

"I think it's just another piece of the football experience," said Don Stansberry, associate dean of students. "The Ted will be open so the students can use the bathrooms and in case of inclement weather. We passed the information to the students (Tuesday). We can already feel the momentum beginning to build."

ODU returns to the football field with a 6 p.m. game Sept. 5 at 19,782-seat Foreman Field against Chowan. Students will be allotted about 4,000 tickets. Some student guest tickets are also available at $10 each. ODU is limiting the number to 200 for the first game.