Old Dominion getting a win at Appalachian State was not what Georgia Southern needed.

The Monarchs were enmeshed in a four-game losing streak and their season was on the brink of going off the rails when they chose last Saturday to turn in their best performance of the season in beating the host Mountaineers, 10-3, to get their first Sun Belt Conference win.

Afterwards Old Dominion coach Ricky Rahne garnered headlines when he donned his shirt and jacket and slid bare-chested down a muddy slope outside the Monarchs’ locker room.

Rahne said he had seen App State students sliding down the incline and in a moment of inspiration he told his team at halftime if they won the game, he would slide down the hill.

The two teams were scoreless at the half and going into the fourth quarter the Mountaineers led 3-2 on the rain-swept day which limited both teams’ offenses. ODU got what proved to be the winning score when Mauriki Jones scored on a 2-yard run with 9:30 to play.

After that two App State punts, a lost fumble and defensive back Brandon Crutchfield’s interception of backup quarterback Henry Hasselbeck—he’s the son of former NFL quarterback Matt—enabled ODU to celebrate.

The celebration began when Rahne, in his seventh season at Old Dominion making him the conference’s longest-tenured coach, fulfilled his promise.

“I said I was going to do it and I’m a man of my word,” Rahne said at his press conference earlier this week. “I didn’t say I was going to do it with my shirt off. That was a bad decision.

“But you know, life’s not very fun without a few bad decisions. So, it is what it is.”

Rahne’s Slide has, he said, unfortunately overshadowed his team’s historic win—it was ODU’s first ever win at App State—and will no doubt be the subject of discussion by television’s talking heads when the Monarchs (2-4, 1-2) host Georgia Southern (2-4, 1-1) Thursday at 7:30 p.m. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN2.

Already a video shot from the bottom of the hill done by the ODU football program has been picked up by numerous national media outlets. The New York Times’ list of winners and losers from the college football weekend ran it under the heading, “Winner: Mudslides.”

While it got the ODU name in front of football fans across the nation there was, Rahne said some drawbacks.

“The thing I don’t like about it is I feel like it took away from how well the guys played,” Rahne said. “That made it more of the story as opposed to how physical our guys played and how much they overcame to win that game. I wish that would have been more the story.”

Rahne is hoping the win over App will generate some momentum for his team which will be an 8.5-point underdog against the Eagles as they, like Georgia Southern, start the second half of the season needing four wins to become bowl eligible.

Old Dominion is coming off a 10-3 season but has faced a major rebuilding on offense as it lost quarterback Colton Joseph who threw for more than 2,600 yards last year to the transfer portal and has an all-new offensive line. The Monarchs have allowed an FBS worst 25 sacks and are last in the nation in total offense with 258.4 yards per game.

Redshirt sophomore Quinn Henicle completed 10 of 20 passes and ran for 88 yards on a career high 26 carries at App. Devin Roche, a 172-pound speedster leads ODU in rushing with 347 yards. Henicle, who did not play in a 46-20 loss to James Madison, has 323 and he has 570 yards passing.

The Monarchs beat Norfolk State (31-10) in their opener then lost to Virginia Tech (44-21), East Carolina (20-17), James Madison and Georgia State (42-10) before clipping App.

If Old Dominion is going to beat the Eagles for a fourth-straight season it is going to have to get a defensive effort similar to the one it turned in against App State. It limited the Mountaineers to 158 yards on 55 plays, the second lowest in school history. ODU held Troy to 138 last season.

Defensive end Javen Gibson had a career game against App with four tackles for a loss and a pair of sacks. He was the SBC’s Defensive Player of the Week.

The good news for the Eagles is the weather is expected to be rain free and there are no muddy slopes near the Monarch’s stadium to be conquered.

As for Rahne he has no regrets about his motivational stunt although it did detract from his team’s accomplishment.

“In my younger days I did a lot of that kind of stuff,” said Rahne who was a record-setting quarterback at Cornell. “Football’s fun and it’s fun to do things like that.”