FOREST, Va. – With five of the seven first-place votes, the Emory & Henry College Football Team is this year’s favorite to win the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, ODAC officials announced Tuesday. The league's seven football coaches are the voters in the poll.

We feel good that the [ODAC] coaches think we are going to have a good football team. I hope they’re right!” commented Head Coach Curt Newsome. “I like our team; I like how we have started camp. We are a long way from where we need to be but we’re going to have a couple scrimmages that I hope will help us going into the season.”

Coming off three-straight winning seasons and riding a five-game winning streak, Emory & Henry is picked to win a record 12th ODAC title and its first since 2000. Newsome, now in his fourth year, welcomes back 18 starters between offense, defense and special teams including five 2016 All-ODAC performers: junior defensive lineman Da'von Keith (Columbia, S.C.), junior wide receiver Jesse Santiago (Yorktown, Va.), senior offensive lineman Grayson Williams (Martin, Ga.), junior defensive back Eric Johnson (Roanoke, Va.) and sophomore punter Garrett Morgan (Mechanicsville, Va.).

“Polls are usually based on what you’ve got returning and we’ve got quite a few starters coming back and still not many seniors. I think people are basing it on the last five games of the season and the last five games of the season last year we were a pretty good football team. But when you go out and start a season, it’s all new and nothing is based on last year,” Newsome added.

Last season’s conference champion, Randolph-Macon College, is second with a first-place nod while Washington and Lee University is third. Hampden-Sydney College sits in fourth, garnering the final first-place vote while Bridgewater College is fifth. Guilford College and Shenandoah University round out the group.

Emory & Henry will kick off the 2017 campaign on Saturday, September 2, hosting Ferrum College at 1:00 p.m. It will be the 11th-straight season that the Wasps and Panthers have opened the season together on the gridiron and marks the second year of the Crooked Road Classic. The day will also see E&H induct and welcome its newest members of the Sports Hall of Fame.

For more information about ODAC Football and to learn about each of the league's seven teams, click HERE.

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2017 ODAC Football
Preseason Poll