The Virginian-Pilot
©
SAVANNAH, Ga.
The Old Dominion Monarchs probably didn't realize it as their bus pulled away from Ted A. Wright Stadium and headed for the airport, but the road they traveled on their trip home Saturday night is called Victory Drive.
How appropriate.
Behind the deft passing of sophomore Thomas DeMarco and some bulldog running by beagle-sized tailback Mario Crawford, the Monarchs drilled the Savannah State Tigers 38-17 and assured themselves a winning season.
Playing its first year of football after a 69-year hiatus that stretched back to the days when the school was the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, ODU is 6-2 and has won three straight.
The Monarchs, who still have three games remaining, will chase victory No. 7 when they host winless Georgetown at 6 p.m. Saturday.
But for the moment, ODU's thoughts were resting deep in this southern city marked by massive mansions and live oaks draped in Spanish moss.
"This one is in my opinion the biggest win of the year," ODU coach Bobby Wilder said. "In my opinion, we're now tied for the best-ever start of an FCS team or above. I consider Coastal Carolina's 6-5 start (in 2003) the best. This is phenomenal."
DeMarco threw scoring passes of 5, 25 and 37 yards and was 14 of 20 passing for 198 yards. The 5-foot-8, 165-pound Crawford ran 17 times for 102 yards after missing the last two games with a shoulder sprain.
Meanwhile, the Monarchs' defense befuddled the Tigers (1-6) throughout the first half with a series of confusing blitz packages that led to a 17-0 halftime advantage.
"I credit our coaching staff for really mixing it up tonight," defensive lineman Chad King said. "We threw a lot of different looks at them."
The Monarchs came out hot and scored on their first possession when DeMarco hit Michael E. Williams on a 5-yard crossing route to cap a 10-play, 66-yard drive.
It was the sixth time this season ODU has scored on its opening drive.
Midway though the second quarter, Drew Hareza nailed a 29-yard field goal, his first since connecting five times in the season opener, to give ODU a 10-0 lead.
ODU's propensity to come up with the big turnover at the appropriate time materialized when Mateus Porter jumped high to intercept a Kurvin Curry pass over the middle intended for Deleon Hollinger with
1:56 left in the first half at the Savannah State 42.
Seven plays later, Chris Lovitt took a wide receiver screen pass from DeMarco and turned it into a 25-yard touchdown with seven seconds left in the half.
Williams and Lovitt both saw the field more than normal as ODU's top two receivers - Reid Evans and Nick Mayers - sat out much of the first half as a disciplinary measure for unspecified violations of team policy.
After the Tigers scored on the opening possession of the second half - Curry hit Hollinger on a 5-yarder over the middle - the Monarchs continued their spread-the-wealth approach.
Crawford appeared stopped at the line of scrimmage, but evaded his tacklers, found a seam and rambled 32 yards for a 24-7 ODU lead.
The Monarchs pushed it to 31-7 on what could be DeMarco's highlight play of the year. With his pocket of protection collapsing, he scrambled to his right and bought enough time for Carlos Davis to get behind a pair of Tigers defensive backs. Toeing the line of scrimmage, DeMarco delivered a 37-yard TD pass.
"Carlos made a play like that at Fordham and I wanted to give him another chance," DeMarco said. "He came up big again."
Savannah State's Derek Williams connected on a 46-yard field goal near the end of the third quarter, but when he lined up for a 45-yarder to start the fourth quarter, the Monarchs smelled some trickery.
The Tigers' attempted fake field goal turned into a 77-yard interception return for a touchdown when A.T. Aoelua picked off holder A.J. Defilippis' pass over the middle.
ODU cleared its bench the remainder of the game and the Tigers tacked on a touchdown near the end when Curry hit Hollinger for a 4-yard score.
"I didn't know what to expect at the beginning of this season," King said. "But I knew we had a lot of hard workers on this team. Once we started playing, though, I had full confidence that we'd do something special."
Rich Radford, (757) 446-2463, rich.radford@pilotonline.com
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impressive
This 1975 grad of ODU is simply blown away with our first year. Living in Ga I have not been able to attend a game, but I have not missed a one on All Access (love All Access). In a couple of years they will be playing the schedule we all want, but until then enjoy the moment. Meanwhile, I hope to be at the VMI game in a couple of weeks.
Success breds success
Nothing helps a team and a program like winning. People want to play for winning teams, people want to watch winning teams play.
ODU is a new program, some of the players have not face competition outside of scrimmage for over a year Come on people, think! What would everyone be writing if they were 0 and 7 but playing a tough schedule? Everything would be along the lines of they were not ready for football
Molinara
I'm sick and tired of people like Molinaro who are always demeaning the home team. Give it a rest. Enjoy the moment. This phenomanally good year will make recruiting great players that much more do-able and lay the ground work for taking on those higher ranked teams as our schedule gets progressively more difficult.
You couldn't have asked for a better beginning than what Bobby Wilder and his team have given us here in Hampton Roads. Go Blue!
Go Monarchs!
Great win - good job team! (PS: Send the mascot over to the south side of the stadium next week - there are kids and fans who would love to see him over there!)
Perspective
Come on now, lets not get ahead of our selves here. While I am very happy that ODU has a winning record and somewhat surprised they do have that winning record, it was done against a very soft schedule. They were expected to lose against Monmouth, Fordham and Jacksonville and they finished 1-2 against them and gave up huge yardage to these teams to boot. Sinisi and Skelton ate them up. The rest of the schedule except maybe VMI are creampuffs full of Non-Scholarship FCS, lower level Big South and Division II schools. Hindsight being 20-20 maybe they should have left William & Mary on the schedule this year as a true test of their progress. I believe that is what Molinaro was referring too. Next year will be a test for them. They have a tougher schedule and schools that played them this year will know how to play them next year. All I am saying is keep this in perspective here. They are playing well so far and thats a good thing but they are an average team at most beating weaker teams which was by design.
Quickly
"schools that played them this year will know how to play them next year" SOMEONE, ANYONE, TELL WILDER THIS....I am sure he is showing us all his cards this year because he seems so naive and unpreapared about coaching a start up program!! If you did not read the Fordham article or just have been in a box, we have the skill postition players to compete right now (note I said the skill postitions). We have some holes to fill but Wilder knows what the heck he is doing. For God's sake our team watches film on the field goal kickers extra points!! Wilder is setting up some folks for next year and I already cannot wait.
Your Comments are correct
My point is that Molinaro's comments about a soft schedule hurts the over all effort of everyone connected with the football program. From recruiting to selling box seats. The winning achievement is against teams that are NOT in their first year of fielding a team! Winning games is part of the marketing mix. They want to have a successful second and third year. In college football; success is not only measured by the schedule, or the strength of the schedule. There are several componets that measure success; recruitment, ticket sales, fan attendance and excitement, local business benefits, City of Norfolk benefits, visibility and recognition benefits for the University and Norfolk. That is just to name a few. By writing negative columns about ODU, it gives the impression that he wants to diminish those intangible benefits. Why? The question only can be answered by Molinaro.
Molinaro was pulling for Savannah State!
You can't deny a winning season. You can't deny if they do better than Coastal Carolina's record. And you can't deny you have bashed the team ODU, fans, supporters, and alumni. Why don't you just cover baseball and let Rich do the real reporting.
Sorry Molinaro
I know you were hoping for a loss to support your next column. Oh wait we beat another weak team so you're okay after all.