ODU Football: 2026 Schedule is a Work in Progress

By David Asbury

A good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the judge, but no one really knows our conference opponents.  

This time last year, I wrote a blog on ODU Football's 2025 opponents.  Even though the conference had not released the schedule, the opponents were easy to decipher by the their rules.  This year is different.  Sure, we know ODU's non-conference opponents which are scheduled in advanced.  Michael Vick's Norfolk State will serve as ODU's annual FCS game. The Monarchs will also host the East Carolina Pirates whose win streak in the series dates back to 1940.  ODU will also go on the road to face a rebuilt UConn and the Penn Sta...I mean the Virginia Tech Hokies who raided Penn State's coaching staff and roster.  The non-conference opponents are set and should be a fun mix of regional favorites and winnable games. 

ODU sports a 3-8-1 all-time record against ECU. But all three wins were in the 1930's. Photo courtesy of CB Sports Photography.

It is the conference opponents where the uncertainty lies.  Usually, the Monarchs would face their six SBC East rivals and two SBC West opponents to have eight total conference games.  According to SBC rules, every team must play all cross divisional opponents once every four years.  Under usual circumstances, ODU would face the SBC West teams that it had not played since 2022, leaving only South Alabama as a certain cross-divisional opponent.  But even that is not certain.  These are not usual circumstances due to Texas State's departure from the Sun Belt. In 2024, ten of the twelve Pac-12 members fled to either the Big Ten or Big 12, leaving only Washington State and Oregon State in a shell of a formerly great conference.  This new "Pac-2" desperately needed six new members to be recognized as an FBS conference.  They first raided five members of the Mountain West Conference to get their membership to seven.  But after UNLV declined their informal invitation, the Pac-12 called Texas State from the SBC West to be their eighth and legally most important member for 2026.  The Bobcats accepted.  This leaves the Sun Belt with only thirteen confirmed teams for the 2026 season. 

Old Dominion defeated Texas State 24-14 in their first and only meeting in 2024.  With TXST's departure from the Sun Belt, the all-time record will remain 1-0 for the foreseeable future. Photo courtesy of CB Sports Photography.

Texas State will not be missed much in the Sun Belt.  They were somewhat on an island in Texas, far from the other members.  The Bobcats were relatively good at Olympic sports but not historically competitive in either football or men's basketball.  The Sun Belt acted fast to find a replacement member poaching Louisiana Tech from Conference USA.  LT is a better regional fit and is already loathed by the other SBC West schools.  That is a good thing.  As Ricky Rahne once said in a Gordon Gecko moment, "in college football, hate is good.  Hate is passion. Indifference is terrible."   

So, with Texas State replaced with a better regional rival; all is well that ends well, right?  The quick change should not impact ODU and their schedule much, right?  Well, it depends. As some Monarch fans may recall, Conference USA is litigious.  It took Southern Miss., Marshall and Old Dominion three separate lawsuits to negotiate their departures for the 2022 football season.  The Sun Belt and Conference USA even released conflicting schedules which both included those three teams. 

Louisiana Tech is now learning how it feels to be on the other side of the litigious Conference USA. Two months ago, CUSA sued LT and the entire University of Louisiana System accusing them of withholding documents related to its transition to the Sun Belt Conference.  Louisiana Tech informed CUSA of its decision to leave on July 14 and join the league effective July 1, 2026.  CUSA bylaws require member schools to provide at least a 14-month notice of departure.  CUSA contends Tech’s July 14, 2025, notice of a July 1, 2026, departure was untimely.  According to court files, the Sun Belt’s official invitation letter to Louisiana Tech came July 9, and LT President signed and agreed on July 14.  Recently, the Court also ruled in CUSA's favor, ordering Louisiana Tech to provide more documents regarding their decision to withdraw from the conference as well as a minor fine.  All of this means we do not know exactly when Louisiana Tech will join.

Marshall and Old Dominion both had to file lawsuits against CUSA to join the Sun Belt in 2022.  Photo courtesy of CB Sports Photography.

Ideally (and what I think will happen), LT and CUSA will reach a financial settlement where LT pays more to exit early and joins the Sun Belt at the beginning of the next fiscal year, July 1, 2026.  They will be plugged in where Texas State was and scheduling will go smoothly.  But that might not happen.  Officially, the Sun Belt and Tech both say they will join, "no later than July 1, 2027."  It is unclear whether CUSA is just trying to get a better settlement or if they really do want to hold Louisiana Tech hostage for an additional year as a member.  It is also unclear whether the Sun Belt will just schedule LT for 2026 anyways like it did for the former CUSA schools in 2022 or if it is okay with thirteen teams for '26.  For ODU and the SBC East teams, thirteen teams create a major schedule shakeup.

If the Sun Belt rocks with only thirteen teams for a season, they could look to the conference creating this issue for a road map as CUSA played with 13 members in unbalanced divisions from 2014 to 2016. Another possibility, they could consider temporarily dissolving the divisions to account for the unbalanced sides.  In the latter scenario, it should be assumed that the conference would protect rivalries like ODU-JMU and App. State-Georgia Southern.  However, it's also possible that this would lead to the Monarchs playing more West schools than the standard 2 and decreasing the amount of games against our eastern rivals.  Which Sun Belt schools make the schedule is completely up in the air and will be subject to discussion amongst the member schools. But decisions need to be made fast, much faster than litigation may allow. 

The Sun Belt usually releases its schedule in March which is also when season ticket renewals usually begin.  So, stay tuned for some juicy litigation because the drama between the SBC, CUSA, LT and everyone else could even get spicier.  Who ODU will play is still, as of now, a work in progress.