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FAU @ Old Dominion Game Thread - November 28th, 2015

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The Matchup: FAU (2-9, 2-5 C-USA) vs. Old Dominion (5-6, 3-4 C-USA)

When: Saturday, November 28th, 12:00 PM

Where: S.B. Ballard Stadium

Weather: Current Conditions in Norfolk

The Series: The Monarchs took the lone meeting 31-28 last season on Boca Raton, capping an 0-5 finish for FAU.

Monarchs Team Site


Game Information

TV: American Sports Network (ASN)

Live Video: None

Radio: ESPN 106.3

Stats: Here



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Owls open at -5.5 favorites for the final week of 2015.
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They will also get another shot at playing spoiler, as the Monarchs will need this game to become bowl eligible.
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Do it owls, get win 3, don't let up or waste the UF effort, prove that gama WAS NOT A FLUKE! And O, PLEASE PASS AND CATCH THE BALL and QUIT WITH THE STUPID DRIVE KILLING PENALTIES!
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Notables from Coach Partridges Monday ODU Presser…

Florida Recap

I thought the assistant coaches put together a great game plan and they gave us a chance to win. Players prepared the right way which again they have shown (all season) and are up here (Tom Oxley Center) this morning. So they prepared the way you would hope they would prepare. Defense faced mid-field, as a starting point, five times and only allowed Florida to score one of those times, after they returned the turnover down inside the 10 yard line. Great job for our defense stepping up at that point. Offense moved the chains and had more first downs than Florida did which was one of our goals, so we accomplished that one. We were not surprised that the game was a four-quarter battle. We expected it to be. Now our challenge is to move on and prepare for Old Dominion the right way and all indicators this morning are that we are doing that.

Old Dominion

They have already said it right after their game that this is their “Super Bowl”. They have five wins. They need six to be bowl eligible. Coach (Bobby) Wilder is extremely aggressive. He has kicked a ton of on-side kicks this year. You see some double passes and things like that so he is an aggressive guy and has done a nice job there. There is a ton of energy and you can feel it through his players. Big up front on both sides. Really big on offense. They have a guy that is listed at 390 at guard (Tyler Burns). He is big. They have a quality running back in Jeremy Cox. I know their quarterback got hurt early in the game (last week), but the guy who is coming in has a ton of experience and has had some starting experience as well.

Health Status

Henry Bussey is questionable – sternum bruise.
Jaquez Johnson – we are going to take a normal look at his ankles.
Nate Ozdemir – is questionable going through concussion protocol, but was symptom free yesterday. Trey Rodriguez – is still questionable with the shoulder. We will keep evaluating that but he is ahead of schedule compared to a week ago.
Jake Stoshak – hamstring questionable
Kalib Woods – is going through concussion protocol.


How encouraging was last week’s game and on the road?

It is really encouraging and you have to really be proud of the ability of players and coaches to block everything out and focus one week at a time. With that we have been so close, so many times and that is hard. It is hard when you are that close and you can feel it happening. You can taste it and smell it. Like you said, we are a few yards away from beating a top-10 team in the country, where there is play-off implications. But, really it is a snap shot of what we can become, where we are headed and with all the youth that is on the field. That was with three untimely turnovers and we were still in position to move forward and potentially win that game. That was the cool thing. You come in and you watch the film and there are so many plays that we could have done things better than we did. They weren’t intimidated by the environment. They went in there expecting to fight for a win and we did. Didn’t get it done and came up short but I’m excited about where I think we can go.

You have had close losses but was this one a different conversation to have with the guys because it was a national conversation because of how well you played?

It really isn’t because it puts that much more emphasis on when you prepare the right way and we are continuing to get better through the entire year. A lot of people talk about the biggest jump in improvement from week one and week two. There are things that we didn’t complete through the course of the year but at the same time you are seeing our kids get better every single week. That is the thing to point to as we continue to prepare the right way and we continue to build the roster. These wins are going to come.

Have you been in a situation before when you are not in contention but you are trying to spoil a team’s bid for a bowl? What is that like? Is that more motivation?

It is. One of their players, I saw the video but didn’t check the jersey number, immediately right after the game was interviewed and he talked about how this was their “Super Bowl”. It just draws attention to our players that you need to understand what we are going into at Old Dominion. They get close to capacity crowds, most of their games and it was a tough loss for us when we played Old Dominion and that field goal bounced in to end the season. Our kids will come in and be motivated. Our younger players are continuing to be coachable. There are examples, again throughout the game, where a young player makes a mistake, he gets coached on it and fixes it within the game. But, yeah that spoiler possibility comes into play also. At the end of the day, it is about us getting better and trying to focus on us. When I was at Pitt and I referred to it even last week. We were going in to play the No. 2 team in the country. If they beat us, they are in the national title game in Morgantown. So, yeah I have been a part of that on a pretty big scale.

Is that a big sell that we would ruin somebody’s hope for bowl games?

It is really more of an awareness of how hard they are going to play and how hard they are going to game plan. They are going to do everything they can to create things during the game, within their scheme. It is really a motivation to prepare and the motivation to play hard and do those things really stems from our weekly improvement. We need to be better this week as a whole.

How beneficial has it been for Jason Driskel to get reps this year?

Huge. I don’t think that there is any doubt that the experience for him is going to mean a lot from a confidence standpoint and having faced those nerves and having worked through those nerves and being truly engaged in the game plan. All those things that tie into being a quarterback and by responding to adversity. He has been through a lot of that now and I think that that is really going to help him as we go into the quarterback competition in the off season. It will be fun to watch.
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Notables from ODU Coach 's Monday FAU presser…

Select Opening Remarks

This week’s opponent, Florida Atlantic, is coming off an overtime loss to Florida, and I thought they played outstanding. They really looked like they dominated that game against the No. 8 team in the nation who is fighting for a playoff spot. FAU held Florida to 250 yards, turned them over twice and made five sacks. On offense, FAU gained 300 yards in some pretty tough conditions.

They are playing two quarterbacks, with Johnson taking most of the snaps, but Driskel always comes in early in the game. Johnson does a great job of protecting the ball. He has only thrown five interceptions in 11 games, which is an impressive statistic considering their record.

Defensively, they have been outstanding the last two games against Middle Tennessee and Florida, two bowl teams. They have one of the best front-sevens in Conference USA and are improving each week. I thought their defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage against Florida, which was surprisingly disappointing to see from our standpoint. They only allowed 123 rushing yards to Florida, 250 total yards and 20 points. They lead the conference with 28 sacks, and interestingly 17 of those 28 sacks have come in their two wins.

As I said to our team, the games in November are always the most memorable and the most meaningful. This is clearly the most important game in the history of our program. I’m glad it’s at home because we are going to need our fans, and we hope they bring a lot of energy to this game. I am not surprised that we are underdogs, especially after what they did last week at Florida. But as I told our team, you are what your record says you are. There is a reason we are 5-6 and they are 2-9, so we will take advantage of the things we see and hopefully have a great performance.


Q: Did FAU’s game against Florida gain your guys’ attention?

A: They had our attention before because of the magnitude of the game. We have been following them all year, and we were aware of how good they are. They have lost five games by 10 points or less in dramatic fashion. Our guys are well aware of how good they are. We played them last year and it came down to one field goal, so we are aware of them.

Q: Talk about your team’s ability to overcome the injuries to Washington and Lawry

A: When David got hurt, Shuler came in and played really well. We scored 31 points as a team, so the production was there. Jeremy Cox also played extremely well at running back, and all the kids were there and saw it and felt it. So it doesn’t take much to get that kind of excitement out of the youthful guys when they see other players step in and play well.


Q: How do you relieve some of the pressure off these kids for this game?

A: To me, pressure is something people who are unprepared experience. We stress to these guys that they need to have a sense of urgency. We have basically been in elimination games for the last month. With this program, we have always tried to make the games that are in November the most important ones. When you get down to it, those are the ones that matter the most. We are 19-3 in the month of November as a program, so our players have responded well to it.
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Of note for Old Dominion:

Monarch QB David Washington had an MRI performed on Monday morning and the findings revealed a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus.

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Just a side note…we lose this game, we finish this season:

2-10   :Poo:

Teambeer is the most knowledgeable FAU sports fan I know, way smarter than me.
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I very much doubt you're going to see the same FAU team that went up against UF. That was more personal; it was in Florida, it was against a ranked team, it was against a BCS team, and the two teams knew players on the other team.

The last category may apply to ODU but otherwise we're a 2-9 team playing a conference usa team in a game that doesn't really matter to us. Wouldn't be surprised if FAU phoned it in a little bit and then fought back in the second half if they fell behind.

That said, would give us some good vibes if we could come off a close OT game to Florida and blow the gates off here. Next season the previews would take that into account, since they're going to ding us for our overall record and new QB, but the returning players would have that to build on.
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owl2Doc said

I very much doubt you're going to see the same FAU team that went up against UF. That was more personal; it was in Florida, it was against a ranked team, it was against a BCS team, and the two teams knew players on the other team.

The last category may apply to ODU but otherwise we're a 2-9 team playing a conference usa team in a game that doesn't really matter to us. Wouldn't be surprised if FAU phoned it in a little bit and then fought back in the second half if they fell behind.

That said, would give us some good vibes if we could come off a close OT game to Florida and blow the gates off here. Next season the previews would take that into account, since they're going to ding us for our overall record and new QB, but the returning players would have that to build on.
Posted On: Nov 23rd 2015, 9:50 PM #352395

Completely agree with this. Look at when we played our best football this year: First three quarters against Miami, The Shula Bowl and in the Swamp against #8 Florida. If there is one thing about Charlie that I like is that he gets the players motivated to play big in big games. And yes, I think anytime we play an FBS Florida school the lights are on extra bright.

That being said, I could see us laying an egg against ODU but hopefully Quez takes over for the last game of his career. In terms of next year, the only for sure W on the schedule is against Southern Illinois. I know it's a lot to put on a young QB but I really hope Parr can lead us to a good season but realistically, I don't think this program will be competing for bowl contention until 2017. Thank Pelini and his JUCO heavy recruiting for that.
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