We saw defending-champion Georgia remind Oregon that you always want to check the difficulty setting before beginning the game, while Florida made a winner out head coach Billy Napier in their upset of #7 Utah.
For the second time in four years, the Hokies fell to Monarch in a game that had no business being as close as the final score. Brent Pry took over for Justin Fuente in Blacksburg with two games left in the 2021 season. The Hokies were 5-5 at the time, finishing a bowl-eligible 6-6, where they were stomped 54-10 by Maryland in the Pinstripe Bowl.
Virginia Tech committed five turnovers, four of them coming off the arm of quarterback Grant Wells. A transfer student from Marshall, the sophomore Wells was 21-of-36 for 193 yards and no touchdowns. Despite the poor numbers, the Hokies dominated time of possession, leading 35:55 to 24:05 for Old Dominion. The Monarch had only 245 yards and 13 first downs on offense, while Virginia Tech committed 14 penalties for 100 yards. If the Hokies would have staved off the upset, these are numbers that Pry could have worked on going into the home opener against Boston College on Saturday, which will open ACC play for both schools.
Instead, Virginia Tech had one of the worst opening weekends a Power Five school could have in the last 15 years. This might be worse than Appalachian State upsetting mighty Michigan in 2007, as the Mountaineers jumped from Division I-AA to I-A in 2014. Old Dominion jumped to I-A in joining Conference USA the same year, with 2022 being their debut season in the Sun Belt Conference.
ODU restarted their football program in 2009, after being dormant since 1940. That year, the Monarchs lost every game, combined with massive debt and issues with accreditation. The Monarchs were one of the schools that decided to cancel their 2020 season at the outset of the Covid pandemic.
With the Hokies trailing 10-7 at halftime, the second half had to be delayed due to a mechanical issue. You might think there was a scoreboard or lighting issue. Instead, several Virginia Tech coaches became trapped in an elevator getting back to their coaching box in the second deck of S.B. Ballard Stadium. The Hokies seemed to take control in the third quarter, outsourcing ODU 10-0 to take a 17-10 lead. Instead, the Monarchs shut the Hokies out in the final frame, capped off by a Blake Watson touchdown with :33 left, sending the majority of the 21,944 in attendance into a frenzy. A minute or two later, many of the Monarch faithful were rushing the field.
To make things even worse, reports emerged on Sunday that items were stolen out of the lockers of Hokie players while the game was ongoing. Further details likely will not be released to the public for days, but the incident takes a large part of the luster off ODU’s victory if true.
To rub salt in the wound, these two schools are also scheduled to meet every season until 2031, with four games back in Norfolk (2024, 2027, 2029 and 2031). Liberty and Virginia are both in-state non-conference opponents in the coming years.
Appalachian State is now a conference rival for the Monarchs, which will be interesting seeing the biggest upset of the early 2022 season match up with the biggest giant slayer--not named Boise State-- on November 19.
-JC24