NORFOLK, VA (WTKR)- Old Dominion head coach Ricky Rahne and his players don't pay much, if any, attention to media pundits and prognosticators, regardless of whether their outlooks are good or bad. They're just focused on going 1-0.
With that said, not many people saw the Monarchs emerging from non-conference play 3-1. But here we are, heading into Sun Belt play with ODU on a three game winning streak and looking to keep the upward trajectory going when it kicks off Saturday against Coastal Carolina and keeping the same mindset that's worked thus far.
"I want us to play like our backs are against the wall," Rahne said Monday. "I think that's who we are. That's how I want us to play, we should play with a chip on our shoulder all the time because that's the type of mentality I'd like us to play with."
"Obviously we wish we were 4-0, but being that we are 3-1, we're in good position right now," added sophomore wide receiver Na'eem Abdum-Rahim Gladding. "Just looking to keep moving forward and keep attacking the mindset. How can we progress? That's the mindset going forward."
Back in July, the Monarchs were picked to finish fifth in the Sun Belt's Eastern Division, but they haven't been playing like a fifth-place team. In addition to knocking off Virginia Tech in Blacksburg for the program's first ever road victory over a power conference opponent, Old Dominion played then-No. 20 Indiana close on the road and picked up its first win over Liberty since 2013. The silver and blue's 468.2 yards per game are good enough for 22nd in the country as they're out to the program's best start since 2014.
Now that conference play has arrived, ODU hopes to keep it going.
"Everybody wants to be a conference champion," Rahne noted. "All these games can help lead to that, but ultimately you still have to go 1-0 each game in order to get that done."
"That's what we're here for," Abdul-Rahim Gladding said. "We're here to beat the teams that are in our conference. The out-of-conference games, they mean something, yes, but at the same time they're not really as relevant, so when we get into conference, it just means that much more because we know what we're going for."
"There's always going to be extra juice because this is where you're made or broke," sophomore safety Jerome Carter added. "These are the games that matter the most, so we've just to got approach every week how we always approach it, dominate practice like we always do and keep studying film how we always do."
Old Dominion will welcome a Chanticleers team that took awhile to get going. They're 2-2 on the year and are averaging less than 300 yards of total offense per game, but Coastal Carolina is coming off its most complete performance of the season, a 38-20 victory over South Alabama. That contest saw the Chants force there turnovers and pick up 420 yards of offense. They'll also come in having some extra time to prepare for the Monarchs, coming off a bye week.
"There were just little things holding them back and in that South Alabama game, they were able to put a lot of things together in order to get those things done," Rahne pointed out. "You could see it was about to turn."
Old Dominion and Coastal Carolina kick off at 6 p.m. this Saturday at S.B. Ballard Stadium.
