One program just rode a six-game winning streak into a bowl trophy. The other blew up its coaching staff and half its roster. That's the split screen heading into this one.
Bush’s Picks
ODUCONN
ODUCONN
OverUnder
Best BetOld Dominion
Old Dominion enters this with a coach who just got an extension, a six-game winning streak, and a bowl trophy — that's a program that knows how it wins. UConn is asking a brand-new staff and an unsettled QB battle to be ready for a November road test against a team that isn't rebuilding from scratch. Until the Huskies prove their transfer haul jells faster than expected, backing continuity is the safer outright lean.
Old Dominion
+Finished 2025 at 10-3 on a six-game win streak
+Cure Bowl win over South Florida to close it out
+Rahne signed an extension, coaching continuity intact
−Incorporating 54 new players, 14 from the portal alone
−Rebuilding most of the offense around new faces
UConn
+Back-to-back nine-win seasons under the previous staff
+Candle brought a record transfer class, 50-plus additions
+QB room upgraded with SEC and bowl-starting experience
−Lost head coach Jim Mora to Colorado State
−44 players hit the portal, 16 followed Mora out
−No settled starting quarterback this early
This one is really about who finds stability first. Old Dominion brings back Ricky Rahne, who signed an extension and just closed 2025 on a six-game winning streak capped by a Cure Bowl win over South Florida. UConn's answer will run through a two-man QB race — Kalieb Osborne, who followed new coach Jason Candle over from Toledo, and Jake Merklinger, a dual-threat Tennessee transfer with SEC snaps who's been tabbed the early favorite. That competition alone tells you how much has changed in Storrs since Jim Mora left for Colorado State.
Whoever wins that job inherits a program that lost 44 players to the portal, including 16 who followed Mora out the door, and rebuilt with a class of transfers pushing past 50. ODU has its own churn — 54 new faces, 15 juco, 14 portal, 25 high schoolers — but Rahne at least gets to plug them into a scheme that just won 10 games. Neither two-deep is close to settled this early, so treat anything resembling a depth chart as a rough draft.
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ODU Old Dominion
CONN UConn
That instability is exactly why this preview leans on program direction more than personnel bets. Old Dominion had the calmer offseason and a head coach with a real track record of overachieving; UConn is wagering that Candle's aggressive transfer haul — his biggest recruiting class ever, built the way he built rosters at Toledo — closes the gap fast. By the time Saturday, November 21 actually arrives, both rosters will have had a full season to figure out who they are.
Old Dominion Monarchs
Nov 6?@ Coastal Carolina—
Oct 30?vs Marshall—
Oct 15?vs Georgia Southern—
Oct 9?@ App State—
Oct 2?@ Georgia State—
Sep 25?vs James Madison—
Sep 19?vs East Carolina—
Sep 12?@ Virginia Tech—
Sep 5?vs Norfolk State—
UConn Huskies
Nov 14?vs James Madison—
Nov 7?vs North Carolina—
Oct 31?@ Air Force—
Oct 23?vs Massachusetts—
Oct 9?@ Temple—
Oct 3?vs Syracuse—
Sep 25?@ Miami (OH)—
Sep 19?@ Southern Miss—
Sep 12?vs Maryland—
Sep 5?vs Lafayette—
Recent form.
ODU's locker room leans on the guys who've already won there. Safety Mario Easterly is entering his fifth season with 20 career starts and 80 tackles a year ago, and running back Devin Roche capped last season with a 100-yard bowl performance. Rahne has explicitly tasked both with teaching four dozen newcomers how things work at Old Dominion — a culture-continuity advantage a first-year staff simply can't fake.
UConn's pitch is the opposite: speed over continuity. Candle's staff didn't just replace bodies, they went after proven producers — Merklinger's SEC experience and Osborne's bowl-game starting reps give the Huskies more immediate QB talent on paper than most first-year rebuilds get. Whether it translates fast enough to matter in a November road trip against a program still riding its 2025 momentum is the actual question here.
Old Dominion Monarchs
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
UConn Huskies
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Injury report — info via ESPN.
Bottom line: this is a program-trajectory game more than a schematic one. ODU is defending a good season with the same coach and a веteran core; UConn is betting a total overhaul pays off before the calendar flips to November. Which side of that bet looks smarter will depend entirely on how each roster gels over the next few months.
