2025 ODU Season Preview - Special Teams

By David Asbury

One-Third of the Game 
Year after year, Old Dominion’s Special Teams are providing competent performances.  Sixth-year ST Coordinator Kevin Smith (insert Jay and Silent Bob Joke here) has done well overall.  In fact, through his tenure he has had great kickers, good returners and a lot of blocked field goals (15, fourth most in the country through that time period).

There have been some hiccups.  Last season's game against Marshall was exacerbated by poor kickoff performances giving the Thundering Herd good field position on a number of occasions.  And none of us can forget the field goal kicking issues during the 2023 Famous Toastery Bowl.  But for the most part, ODU's Special Teams have been.. well special.  This year, trust Coach Smith to put together another great unit despite the new faces.

Former ODU Kicker Ethan Sanchez admires his kick against Virginia Tech. Photo courtesy of CB Sports Photography.

Kicker
Ethan Sanchez held down the kicker position for the past three years and even led the Sun Belt in FG percentage (91.7%) in 2024.  Following the season Ethan transferred to the Big XII's University of Houston and (likely) received a bump in NIL pay.  No matter.  ODU has some potential replacements.

First there's Riley Callaghan who transferred in from SLU.    He may not have the same power as Sanchez but was near-perfect on extra points hitting 26 out of 27 attempts last season.  He was good enough there that Phil Steele has already named him his All SBC second-team kicker.  He will compete for the job with junior Nathanial Eichner.  Nathaniel transferred to ODU in 2023 from Alabama State. He has yet to kick for Old Dominion, but in 2022 he was 5 for 8 on field goals with a long of 42 and 9 of 11 on extra points for ASU.  Callaghan is the favorite to win the kicking job but Eichner may not be far behind.

Then there's also Josh Hamel, a transfer from FCS New Haven.  Hamel took on both kicking and punting duties for the Chargers and can fill in wherever needed in Norfolk.  In 2024, he was 3-for-7 on field goal attempts with a long of 25 and 43-for-47 on extra points.  So if he plays any, he may stick to punting or kickoffs instead.

Punter
Seamus Hall was a solid punter for the Monarchs averaging 40.9 yards per punt last season.  However,  he is out of eligibility.  Returnee Ian Brandt appears to be set to replace him.  Brandt was holder for field goals last season but in 2023 he punted 22 times for a 38.9-yard average with five punts downed inside the 20 and six punts being fair caught.  His career-long was a 64 yarder against WKU in the Famous Toastery Bowl.  Meanwhile, Hamel will be the reserve punter.  He punted at New Haven 31 times averaging a solid 41.0 yards per punt.  His longest was 66 yards and he had 15 punts inside the 20.  The punting competition looks fierce.

Punting was not a problem last year outside of the Southern Miss game.  However, punting hopes to be better this season making it a strength of the special teams unit.  We may even want to adopt Iowa’s moniker of “punting is winning.”  On second thought, let’s not do that.

Returners
Judging returning based purely on averages is kind of tough. If you are known for being a good special teams unti, the opposition will adjust and game plan around that. They may add more hang time to the kicks to avoid outkicking the coverage or place kicks in hard to return areas of the field, doing whatever they can to limit returns; resulting in lowered numbers. But if we are judging based just on averages, last season, the returners were less than ideal.  The Monarchs did not return kick offs often but when they did they averaged only 15.2 yards per attempt (13th in SBC).  Now, part of that is that Devin Roche was injured for some of the year. But even when playing the unit certainly lost that electric spark it had when LaMareon James was returning kicks.  Roche returns in 2025 but as a primary running back they may save his energy for the offensive side of the ball. 

Punt returning also has room for improvement after averaging just 6.3 punt yards per attempt (11th in SBC) in 2024.  Isiah Paige was the punt returner for the last few seasons but he ran out of eligibility.  ODU will look to replace him and (hopefully) find improved return numbers.  Wide Receiver Na'eem A.R. Gladding and Safety Mario Easterly appear to be a prime contenders to return kicks and punts this season.  They have not done that for the Monarchs before so it is a little mysterious how well they will perform.

LB Koa Noatala attempts to go over Virginia Tech's FG units line to block the kick. Photo courtesy of CB Sports Photography

Overall
Some say a quiet special teams is a good special teams.  That's because more often than not special teams players are being noticed for their mistakes.  This unit did not make a whole lot of critical mistakes last season. So from that perspective, they were a good unit.  But this is not really the same unit.  There's a new kicker, punter, returners, long snapper and new guys manning the coverage and blocker roles.  But despite the turnover, I'd bet for Coach Kevin Smith to have his special teams units in a good place.