ODU is one of the very few FBS teams in the country that will not play an FCS school this year, so you have to take some of these rankings with a grain of salt. Imagine if we had played Virginia and Liberty instead of Norfolk State and Gardner-Webb how differently our numbers (and likely record) would be.
Offensively, there's not much to write home about here. 323 of their 826 rushing yards on the season came against Coastal Carolina - that's an average of 72 per game against everyone else. Georgia State held them to 16 yards on 22 carries on Saturday.
QB Hayden Wolff (14 TDs and 3 INTs) has significant playing time/starts over their last 3 seasons (ODU sat out 2020) but has only thrown 1 pass against us in his career. Last year we faced former UCF transfer DJ Mack Jr. who is still on the team but typically only comes in for run/pass option situations (3 passes and 5 runs on the year).
ODU has the 3rd worst 3rd down offense in the country. We have the best 3rd down defense in the country.
Defensively, from a yards allowed perspective this is the 2nd worst defense in the conference behind only Georgia Southern. However, they're able to hold the scoring down because they've had one of the better Red Zone defenses in the country - 30 Red Zone trips allowed but only 15 touchdowns and 6 field goals allowed. Conversely, we have the 4th worst Red Zone offense in the country - 31 trips and only 16 touchdowns and 5 field goals.
Similar to the last two games, this will most likely be decided by turnovers and/or special teams miscues.
This feels like another 16-13 game one way or the other.
| Marshall (4-4) | Old Dominion (3-5) |
PPG | 24.9 (91st) | 24.6 (92nd) |
Points Allowed | 17.5 (15th) | 27.0 (70th) |
Total Offense | 390.9 (71st) | 356.5 (96th) |
Rush Offense | 189.4 (36th) | 103.2 (116th) |
Pass Offense | 201.5 (104th) | 253.2 (54th) |
Offensive Pass Effic | 128.67 (94th) | 134.92 (75th) |
3rd Down Offense | 35% (102nd) | 26% (129th) |
Total Defense | 282.8 (8th) | 442.0 (116th) |
Rush Defense | 87.1 (6th) | 184.9 (106th) |
Pass Defense | 195.6 (30th) | 257.1 (101st) |
Defensive Pass Effic | 107.44 (5th) | 140.76 (99th) |
3rd Down Defense | 21% (1st) | 42% (95th) |
Turnover Margin Per Game | +0.50 (31st) | +0.50 (31st) |
Penalty Yards Per Game | 55.88 (68th) | 67.5 (111th) |