Taylor Heinicke retired from the NFL back in May after a 7-year run that took him from an undrafted free agent to a folk hero in Washington. Now Old Dominion is bringing him home for good.
Old Dominion will retire former QB Taylor Heinicke's jersey at halftime of Oct. 15 game vs. Georgia Southern
Brett McMurphy's report lays it out plainly: the Monarchs will retire Heinicke's jersey at halftime of their Oct. 15 game against Georgia Southern. It's the kind of honor that usually takes decades to earn, but Heinicke's ODU tenure was absurd enough to fast-track it.
From 2011 to 2014, Heinicke threw for 14,959 yards and 132 touchdowns at Old Dominion, and his 2012 season is still one of the wildest in FCS history — 5,076 passing yards and 44 touchdowns, plus a Division I single-game record of 730 passing yards against New Hampshire. That year got him the Walter Payton Award and FCS Player of the Year, the top individual honors the subdivision hands out.
None of that got him drafted. Heinicke went undrafted in 2015 and bounced through practice squads in Minnesota, New England, Houston and Carolina before a detour to the XFL's St. Louis BattleHawks in 2020. He was even finishing his ODU degree through online classes while stuck on Washington's practice squad that December — a detail that makes this jersey retirement feel less like a formality and more like a full-circle moment.
The NFL chapter that followed is the reason ODU is doing this at all. Heinicke's playoff start against Tampa Bay in January 2021 turned him into a folk hero in Washington, where he made 24 of his 29 career starts across seven seasons and four other franchises. He finished with 6,663 passing yards and 39 touchdowns before hanging it up this spring, an ending he called, in his own retirement post, one where 'the ups outweigh the downs tenfold.'
For a Group of Five program, having a jersey worth retiring at all is rare — Heinicke remains ODU's most recognizable NFL export by a wide margin. Expect Norfolk to be loud on Oct. 15, and don't be surprised if this doubles as an unofficial college football reminder that FCS legends can still make it all the way.