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Stick and Go • Week 9 Primer
By Mike Langston
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In a season that has gone the way this one has for Old Dominion, the storylines start to repeat themselves. The running game has been stifled, and for a program whose offense is built on running the football, that has made everything else a struggle. ODU ranks 138th in total offense. Dead last. We could keep rehashing the same things we've talked about on the podcast and with our friends all season long, or we could look at an overlooked part of the game that matters even more when things aren't bouncing our way: the hidden yardage.
Hidden yardage is everything that moves the ball without a snap from scrimmage. Punts and punt returns. Kickoffs. Penalties that flip a third down into a first down. Turnovers that hand the other team a short field. It sounds like small stuff, but for a team that has been scoring as little as ODU has, it is the difference between needing a 75-yard drive and needing a 30-yard drive.
Through eight games, 49 of the 214 points ODU has allowed, nearly a quarter of them, came on return touchdowns or after giveaways deep in ODU territory. That is not the defense getting beat. That is field position getting lost.
Now, the trend has cooled a bit in recent weeks as all 49 of those points came in the first six games. Georgia Southern and Louisiana Tech did not score a return touchdown, and Georgia Southern's only short-field points were a field goal after a fumble near midfield. Those two teams earned their points the long way, which is exactly what you want to force an opponent to do.
The ECU Game Was Decided Here
If you want one game that explains why this matters, it is the 20-17 loss to East Carolina. Go back through the drive chart and almost every point in that game came from the hidden side of the ball.
| Points | How They Happened |
|---|---|
| ODU 7 | Justin Watts forces a fumble at the ECU 23, Daevon Iles scoops it and scores |
| ODU 7 | Devin Roche returns a punt 38 yards to the ECU 35; Quinn Henicle runs it in from 18 five plays later |
| ECU 7 | A fourth-down snap goes wrong at the ODU 47 and the ball is recovered 19 yards back; ECU starts at the ODU 28 and scores in two plays |
| ECU 7 | 67-yard interception return on a third-and-18 throw |
Source: ODU Athletics official box score and drive chart.
That is 14 of ODU's 17 points and 14 of ECU's 20 points coming from returns, takeaways and one bad snap. The offenses traded a field goal apiece and ECU added a second one. In a three-point game, the hidden yardage battle was basically the whole game.
Where the Drives Start
The simplest way to measure hidden yardage is average starting field position. I went through the official drive chart for all eight games, and the picture is hard to ignore: ODU's opponents have started with better field position in every single one of them.
| Game | Result | ODU Avg. Start | Opp. Avg. Start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norfolk State | W 31-10 | Own 32 | Own 36 |
| at Virginia Tech | L 21-44 | Own 26 | Own 37 |
| East Carolina | L 17-20 | Own 27 | Own 29 |
| JMU | L 20-46 | Own 29 | Own 40 |
| at Georgia State | L 10-42 | Own 27 | Own 30 |
| at App State | W 10-3 | Own 27 | Own 32 |
| Georgia Southern | L 15-23 | Own 19 | Own 35 |
| at Louisiana Tech | L 0-26 | Own 18 | Own 39 |
| Season | 2-6 | Own 26 | Own 34 |
Average drive start, all possessions. Source: official drive charts via ODU Athletics.
Over 102 drives, ODU has started at its own 26 on average. Its opponents' 99 drives have averaged a start on their own 34. That is roughly eight yards of free field on every single possession. ODU has started inside its own 20 on 23 drives; opponents have done it 13 times. And opponents have started in ODU territory 16 times, twice as often as the Monarchs have started on the other side of the 50.
The worst stretches tell the story. JMU started four drives in ODU territory, including the 72-yard kickoff return that set the Dukes up at the ODU 18 and a lost fumble that gave them the ball at the ODU 24. Virginia Tech got the ball at the ODU 20 after a fumble and at the ODU 1 after a punt. Then the last two weeks flipped the other way: Georgia Southern pinned ODU's final three drives at the 14, 10 and 5, and in Ruston four drives started at the 11 or worse, including one from the 4. The gap in those two games was 16 and 20 yards per drive. Asking a struggling offense to go 80 or 90 yards over and over is asking a lot.
Even the wins show it. Norfolk State started its drives four yards closer to the end zone than ODU did in a 21-point Monarch win, thanks largely to an interception at the ODU 22 and a lost fumble at the ODU 35. In Boone, ODU's drives started at its own 6 and its own 7 at different points, and the Monarchs won anyway because they ran the ball 61 times, held it for nearly 39 minutes and forced three turnovers. It worked in the rain. It is a hard way to win every week.
To be fair, not all of that is on special teams. Field position starts with the offense. When ODU goes three-and-out on nearly a third of its possessions, 128th in the country per The Fourth Quarter, it is punting from its own 25 instead of midfield, and opponents start closer as a result. That is the cycle this team has been stuck in: the offense stalls, the field flips, and the next drive starts in a hole. Which is exactly why the hidden yards matter so much. ODU can't fix the offense by Saturday, but it can stop giving away the yards on the margins that make the hole even deeper.
The Punting Battle
When an offense punts as often as ODU's has, the punting battle becomes a real factor. Here is every game this season.
| Game | ODU Punts / Avg. | Opp. Punts / Avg. |
|---|---|---|
| Norfolk State | 2 / 45.0 | 4 / 41.8 |
| at Virginia Tech | 6 / 45.2 | 2 / 48.0 |
| East Carolina | 7 / 35.7 | 6 / 48.2 |
| JMU | 7 / 46.3 | 4 / 39.3 |
| at Georgia State | 9 / 44.8 | 6 / 46.7 |
| at App State | 7 / 37.1 | 8 / 44.1 |
| Georgia Southern | 4 / 41.8 | 3 / 44.0 |
| at Louisiana Tech | 5 / 40.6 | 3 / 39.0 |
| Season | 47 / 41.9 | 36 / 44.2 |
Gross punting average. Source: official team statistics via ODU Athletics
Over the full season, the gap is a little over two yards per punt, and it is not spread evenly. Take out two games and ODU has actually outkicked its opponents, 44.2 yards to 43.1. The damage came at ECU, where the Pirates had four kicks of 50-plus yards and ODU had none, and at App State, where the Mountaineers dropped four punts inside the 20 and blocked one of ODU's.
The bigger issue is volume. ODU has punted 47 times to its opponents' 36, so even a small gap gets multiplied. And the gross average does not show coverage: Virginia Tech returned two punts for 78 yards in Blacksburg.
So the punting battle is part of the field-position problem, but not most of it. A couple of yards a punt does not explain an eight-yard gap on every drive across the season. The bigger pieces are the ones that follow: giveaways in ODU territory and the yards the Monarchs hand back with flags.
What's Working
This is not all bad news. A couple of units have been steady.
The kickoff team. Andrew Nelms has been averaging 65 yards per kick, and in the Norfolk State and East Carolina games he put nine of his ten kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks. When ODU does score, opponents are usually starting at the 25.
The return game. Zion Frink has returned seven kicks for 156 yards in the Norfolk State, ECU and Georgia Southern games, a 22.3 average with a long of 36. Roche's 38-yard punt return against ECU set up a touchdown, and he had a 26-yarder against Norfolk State that set up another one.
Takeaways. ODU recovered seven fumbles in its first six games, a total that trailed only UCLA nationally at that point, and added an interception against Georgia Southern. When the defense gets the ball deep, the offense cashes in: a strip-sack by Javen Gibson against Norfolk State gave ODU the ball at the NSU 12, and Henicle scored two plays later.
The Yards ODU Gives Back
The flip side is the self-inflicted stuff, and penalties are the biggest piece. Early in the season, ODU was giving up 75.3 penalty yards per game, which ranked 122nd nationally after four games. JMU drew 13 flags for 96 yards on the Monarchs, and ECU drew nine for 95.
Some of the most costly ones have come on special teams, where a flag does not just cost yards; it erases a good play. In the Norfolk State game alone:
| Play | What It Cost |
|---|---|
| Punt return to the ODU 45, holding | Ball moved back to the ODU 25 (20 yards) |
| Punt return to the ODU 36, holding | Ball moved back to the ODU 15 (21 yards) |
| Roughing the kicker on NSU's fourth-and-2 punt | Automatic first down; NSU kicked a field goal on the drive |
Source: Norfolk State Athletics official play-by-play.
That is about 41 yards of return work wiped out and three points handed over, in a game ODU controlled. Against JMU, an illegal substitution penalty extended a Dukes drive that should have been a three-and-out to open the second half, and a 72-yard kickoff return gave them a short field. Turnovers and that return handed JMU 10 easy points.
Welcome Back, 2016
Saturday is about more than the Herd. During a first-half media timeout, ODU will honor its 2016 Popeyes Bahamas Bowl championship team, the first team in program history to qualify for and win a bowl game.
That group went 9-3 in the regular season, closing with a five-game winning streak. Fittingly, the win that locked up bowl eligibility was a 38-14 victory over Marshall, ODU's only win in the series. The Monarchs then beat Eastern Michigan 24-20 in the Bahamas to finish with the program's first 10-win season at the FBS level.
When they take the field, give them the ovation they earned, and then stay loud for the group trying to beat the same opponent on the same field.
Why It Matters Saturday
Marshall comes to Norfolk for Homecoming at 1 p.m. sitting at 4-3 and 1-2 in the Sun Belt. ODU is coming off a 26-0 loss in Ruston where Louisiana Tech took the opening kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown and never let the Monarchs settle in.
For this team, the path to points does not have to run through 12-play drives. It ran through short fields against Norfolk State, through a punt return and a scoop-and-score against ECU, and through takeaways in Boone. If ODU can win the hidden yardage battle by even 40 or 50 yards on Saturday, it shrinks the field for an offense that needs all the help it can get, and it lengthens the field for Marshall against a defense that has been good enough all year.
What to Watch
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1
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Where ODU's first three drives start. If the Monarchs are opening possessions near the 35 instead of inside the 20, the offense has a fighting chance to put points on the board early. |
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2
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Clean returns. No holding flags on the return units. A 12-yard punt return only counts if it stays on the field. |
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3
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The punting battle. Keep an eye on how ODU's punts compare to Marshall's. Getting within a couple of yards per punt is a quiet win. |
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4
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Takeaways in plus territory. This defense punches at the ball as well as anyone. One forced fumble on Marshall's side of the field could be worth more than any drive ODU puts together. |
The Bottom Line
The offense will be what it is on Saturday, and we have talked about that plenty. But the yards between the plays are within this team's control right now. Flip the field, keep the flags off the return units, and let the defense take the ball away in good spots. Do that on Homecoming, and the Monarchs give themselves a real shot to send Monarch Nation home happy. Go Monarchs!
Statistics via official box scores, drive charts and play-by-play from ODU, CBS Sports and FOX Sports gametrackers, plus ODU Athletics game notes and releases.
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