AMHERST - With one moving in and the other moving out, Saturday's 7 p.m. game between the University of Massachusetts and Old Dominion in Norfolk, Va., is a conference rivalry that will last exactly one game.

The 2011 season is the first in the Colonial Athletic Association for the Monarchs (3-1, 0-1 CAA), who are eligible for the league title and Championship Subdivision postseason after playing their first two seasons as an independent.

The Minutemen (2-1, 1-0 against CAA teams) are in their last season in the CAA as they'll move to the Bowl Subdivision and Mid-American Conference next year. They aren't eligible for postseason, a league title or even a league record. While the game will count in conference standings for ODU, UMass' CAA record all year is officially 0-0.

The Monarchs hadn't fielded a football team since 1941 when the brought the program back in 2009. But they've found success right away. ODU went 9-2 against a mixture of Division II and lower-level FCS schools in their first season in 2009. Last year, they were 8-3 against all FCS schools and won their last five games.

This year, they opened the season with three straight wins over Campbell, Georgia State, which joins the CAA next year, and Hampton. They hung with perennial CAA and national power Delaware last week for most of the game before falling 27-17, at Delaware.

"We gave a great effort. We were up 17-16 with 10 minutes to go. But it's not a 50-minute game. You have to play for 60 minutes and they outscored us 11-0 in the last 10 minutes of the game and that was the difference in the ballgame," said ODU coach Bobby Wilder, who was the associate head coach at Maine before taking over in Norfolk. "I was proud of our effort. I felt like we were well prepared an in position to win the ball game. But you don't get points for second place. ... We played well against William & Mary (in 2010) and we played well against Delaware, but we didn't win either of those games. We need to break through and win a league game to get that confidence as a program.

"We're the only program in this league that needs to establish themselves. We need to prove that we belong," Wilder continued. "We haven't done that until this point. I feel confident we've proved we can compete and play with anyone in the league. We need to prove it by going out and winning a game."

Their next chance to break through for a league win will be Saturday, the first league game at Foreman Field. ODU has scheduled the game as a blackout event, asking all of its fans to wear black in the stands. That figures to be a lot of black. This will be the Monarchs' 17th home game since the program was resurrected. The previous 16 have all sold out 20,000-seat Foreman Field and tickets have all been sold for Saturday.

"This is exciting. It's fun for the school, for the students. We have a tremendous fan base," Wilder said. "This will be our 17th home game and our 17th consecutive sellout."

UMass coach Kevin Morris was impressed with their early building job.

"They did it right. They're going on their 17th straight sellout in their 20,000-seat stadium. They scheduled correctly so they can get a lot of wins under their belt the first couple years so the kids understand how to win. They've done very well and attracted some quality athletes."

While the teams will only play once, Wilder was looking forward to it.

"UMass is always a game I've been excited about from my time playing at Maine and coaching at Maine. They're such a good program," he said. "Traditionally they're so strong. Year in and year out you know they're going to have a good team and you always know they're going to have a great back. That's the case with Jonathan Hernandez this year. He's a fun back to watch. He's not fun to coach against. Wathcing the way he runs, he's so aggressive. His yards after contact are really impressive."

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.