![]() ![]() Coming in at half time there was excitement but we knew it wasn’t close to being over, especially after the previous year they put 30 points up in the second half. “Before running out of the tunnel coach Wilder said, ‘To win the game we are going to have to keep it close’ and that is what we did. In pregame there was a lot of guys that were reuniting with ex-teammates from high school which was kinda cool to see, but other than that everyone was focused in on what we had to do.” It kinda felt as if we were the visiting team. ![]() ![]() Upon arriving to the stadium one thing that stuck out was the amount of Tech fans that were there. ![]() “As the morning went on and other players started to wake up for breakfast there was not much talk just focusing on the biggest game of all of our time here at ODU. “ I remember tweeting “Why not us?” which is what coach Wilder had been preaching to us all week since they (Virginia Tech) were coming in as the #13 team in the country and we had yet to win a game.” I went down to the lobby and sat out on the porch watching the sun rise,” Cate said. “For me personally I remember waking up at 4:30 that morning because my roommate was snoring up a storm. Reese Beckerīailey Cate was the punter for ODU that day, and is still with the Monarchs’ program. Jonathan Duhart makes a catch in the end zone to put the Monarchs up 42-35. The first time that we took the lead when Cox scored to make it 35-28, that’s the first time I felt like we were going to win because that was in the fourth quarter and we had run the ball and went right down the field.”įrom there, Chris Cunningham, who later transferred to ODU along with former Tech teammate Eric Kumah, scored on a 4th and 3 pass to tie the game at 35-35 before LaRussa hit Duhart to take the lead, and Jeremy Cox put the nail in the coffin to make it 49-35. We kept getting behind and catching up, and every time we scored to tie it, we gained confidence, I know it seems crazy because you are going ‘wait a minute you kept falling behind’, just the fact that it kept getting later and later in the game and we stayed with them. Wilder went on to recap the scoring and momentum shifts, “They scored again 21-14 and we answer with a TD by LaRussa 21-21, they score the very next play on a 75-yard touchdown pass and we answer again. Then, they scored to go up 14-7 and they had the ball, and I think one of the key plays of the game, Geronda Hall intercepted a pass before the half and then we scored, LaRussa to Duhart and now its 14-14 at the half and everybody in the stadium thinks something could happen.” “We hadn’t scored the year before so the first touchdown by Duhart gave everybody confidence and really got the fans into it. “At the start of the game, they scored first and then we tied it,” Wilder commented. “I really felt Saturday at our team meeting at the hotel before we left to go to the stadium there was a good feeling within the team that if we could just stay close and get the crowd involved that we would have an opportunity to win and we went in with the mindset that we had everything to gain and nothing to lose,”Wilder exclaimed. “We hadn’t put anything together yet in the first three games and I unveiled to the team what we called ‘The anatomy of an upset and what needed to happen’ so we started with that and we gained a little confidence that we had a plan.” “It started the Sunday before when we met as a team, we weren’t feeling good about ourselves,” Wilder said. The upset over Virginia Tech was even more surprising when you consider that the Hokies rocked ODU and then 17-year old QB Steven Williams the year before in Blacksburg 38-0. Steven Williams passed for just 85 yards against Virginia Tech in 2017. Many people thought that ODU would field a successful program but no one saw the Monarchs upsetting a Power 5 program or winning a bowl game (Bahamas Bowl) so early in the program’s history. ODU brought football back in 2009, hiring Wilder and aiming to bring a quality product to Hampton Roads. What really makes this game stand out isn’t how improbable it was, but the effect it has had on fans, players, and coaches around the Old Dominion program. Led by Bobby Wilder, the only coach the program has ever known, the Monarchs were 0-3 despite having future NFL players defensive end Oshane Ximines and wide receivers Jonathan Duhart and Travis Fulgham on the roster. LaRussa ended up leading what is one of the great upsets in NCAA history when the Monarchs shocked the world, beating the Hokies 49-35 in front of around 20,000 fans. Steven Williams started for ODU, but was soon replaced with Blake LaRussa. On my way to the game, my mom told me “you know it’s going to be a blowout, there is no way Tech loses to ODU,” and she was just saying what most others thought.ĮSPN had the Monarchs as 28.5 point underdogs. Justice Davila waves to the crowd during pre-game. ![]()
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