From east-central Indiana the Cardinals of Ball State are heading up north to face Notre Dame on the football field for the very first time. It doesn’t come at a great time for their program as 3rd-year head coach Mike Neu has won just 7 out of his first 25 games with one single win in the MAC from 16 total, including 13 straight league defeats.
On the plus side, the Cardinals began their 2018 season walloping Central Connecticut State, 42-6.
Ball State (+34.5) at # Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, 8, 2018
Time: 3:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
Series: First Meeting
Central Connecticut State was decent last year (8-4, undefeated in the Northeast Conference, made the FCS playoffs) so maybe Ball State has improved and has a pulse this year!
They’ll have to improve because last year was near rock bottom for the Cardinals. They finished 125th in the F/+ rankings, quite literally in contention for the worst FBS team in the United States of America.
3 Pre-Game Topics
How About That Improvement?
Obviously, Ball State is going to be severely over-matched on the field this Saturday. However, they have some hope in redshirt junior quarterback Riley Neal. He went out for the year after 3 games in 2017 while leading a 2-1 record with a close loss to Illinois as the offense averaged 33.3 points per game. Without him, Ball State didn’t win again and finished with 12.7 points per game over their last 9 contests.
Neal is big at 6’6″ 225 and can move (1,043 rushing yards) while he comes into the weekend with 5,735 career passing yards and 48 touchdowns. He’s no chump and could do some damage this weekend.
Take a Load Off Wimbush
Protecting Wimbush should be a high priority this weekend. Is it possible he tones things down running the ball? Last year, his season-low for rushes in a game in which he played the whole way was 7 against NC State. There really shouldn’t be any need to see him running more than half a dozen times, particularly if he’s comfortably resting on the bench in the 4th quarter.
Insert the Youth
As noted in our Michigan game review, the freshmen were not used liberally for their first career action. In fact, only 4 of them saw the field. This weekend, that should change.
The story after this game will be who didn’t play. We could see numerous skill position players on offense get some reps late, and there are plenty of options. Will we see a little bit of Phil Jurkovec at quarterback? I’d imagine 2 of the offensive linemen could see some time while on defense linebacker Shayne Simon could certainly make his debut. The rest of the defense is tough because the depth is actually pretty strong–you’d have to dip into 3rd or 4th team guys to get freshmen out there. For example, Derrik Allen really hasn’t been a factor at safety so will he get thrown out there anyway?
2 Key Opponents
RB James Gilbert
Not only did Ball State lose quarterback Riley Neal after 3 games last year they also saw running back James Gilbert go down for the season after suffering a hand injury. He’s back and slowly climbing up the school rushing record book. In 2016, he gained 1,332 yards which placed him 28th nationally on the ground and last week he put up a cool 100 yards on just 14 carries.
LB Jacob White
Here’s another guy who was nearly lost after the 3rd game last year, too! Maybe Ball State should never schedule Tennessee Tech ever again? White broke a bone in his hand and played the final 9 games with a cast in order to gut it out. A two-time captain, he led Ball State in tackles last year and was really productive last weekend against CCSU: 4 tackles, 1.5 TFL, 1 sack, and 1 break-up.
1 Prediction
It doesn’t take much to be good in the MAC, or at least spin off one really good season. Brady Hoke rode a generational season from quarterback Nate Davis in 2008 to a 12-2 season and 5 years later Pete Lembo coached Keith Wenning who dominated the QB stats in conference to a 10-3 record in 2013. It’s the consistency at Ball State that’s been completely lacking.
Hoke has long since been gone from Muncie and is now the Carolina Panthers defensive line coach. Lembo left Ball State to become an assistant at Maryland and is now coaching special teams at Rice. Outside of the 2 seasons mentioned above, Ball State is 36-62 and largely been a barren wasteland in Midwest football. They’ve had only 2 players selected in the NFL Draft over the last 9 years, including no one in the past 4 drafts.
Yet, the Cardinals aren’t that bad against Power 5 competition!
They beat Virginia by 21 during the aforementioned 2013 season, granted that was in the running as the worst season in Hoo’s history during my lifetime (I’m getting old). Ball State has lost their last 5 to Power 5 teams, but only by an average of 10.8 points which includes an outlier 33-point loss to Texas A&M. The other 4 losses to Iowa, Northwestern, Indiana, and Illinois came by an average of just 5.5 points. Weirdly competitive for a basement dwelling MAC team.
This is all to set up the fact that the spread in this game is the largest in recent Notre Dame memory. It’s certainly the largest of the Brian Kelly era at Notre Dame, although nothing can quite match up to the 1989 SMU 54-point line as the Mustangs were coming off the death penalty. That day, the Irish almost covered in the first half before controversially dialing it back over the last 2 quarters.
There’s so much that bothers me about the Tulsa game in 2010 that remains frustrating to this day and among the reasons is the talk as if that was an epic upset. The Irish were only favored by 9.5 points to a team that won 10 games and scored over 40 per game. That’s bad but 50 years from now barely even registering in the history books.
Now, this weekend offers upset of the century potential! Granted, I can’t even bring myself to go there although I do think this Ball State team is going to be far more feisty than their recent history suggests. I know nothing about their coach Mike Neu and couldn’t pick him out of a lineup to save my life. But, their offense could very well be vastly improved and that’s something which no one across the country really cares enough about to predict.
Riley Neal has to be in the discussion as one of the best quarterbacks in the MAC, and his recent injury history only makes their offense a lot more under-the-radar than if he’d been healthy for most of 2017. He appears to be surrounded by some quality playmakers, as well. Putting up a 300/300 (passing and rushing) performance–even if against Central Connecticut–has their arrow pointing upward for sure. Any time a team puts up a school-record in yardage I’m taking notice.
The problem is that you could say a lot of these same things about Miami (OH) last year (35-point Irish win), except Ball State has far less overall talent and more problems on defense. I think they’ll be competitive into the 2nd quarter and it’ll be down-hill from there forward.
Clearly ND wins this one. Just hope we get everyone who hasn’t played some seasoning and we need to see what the Jurk has in a real game environment. I’m taking the points, though. I don’t trust ND in 30+ pt spreads. I’m thinking like 42-12
Every prediction I’ve seen emphasizes not ball state winning or losing but them covering the spread or not. Poor guys.
I like your prediction of bsu getting to 20, prompting full scale panic about the defense. Limiting Wimbushs carries is key, would love to see him get down and not fight for extra yards in this one. And for gods sake please make sure you get all the way out of bounds Brandon, you’ll make me have visions of Crist (unholy ones at that).
ND 52 Ball State 24
“Now, this weekend offers upset of the century potential!”
Michigan-App State had no line. Go Blue.
Nice preview. Just want a smooth game with no injuries and to get a chance to see Jurkovec. Hopefully not too much to ask.
The real strategy question with freshmen is whether to play early.
If there’s no chance you’d need them late in the season (due e.g. to season ending injuries) then you play them now. But if there’s a chance you’d need them later on you’d like to save a game.
E.g. Jurkovec will probably not be needed so let’s see him in this game.
But maybe if Coney goes down (and I suppose this could even just be a few week injury) then maybe you wait and save Bauer.
Of course this is only with players you are hoping to red-shirt.
Douglas Farmer said the 5 freshmen to play vs Michigan were: (Jayson) Ademilola, Bauer, Bracy, Griffith and Austin for the offense. So those guys are all going to burn their redshirts anyways since they’re good enough to be in the two-deep and/or special teams work all season long.
The tier of players to watch for how the manage the 4 games of freshmen playing time look like: Simon, Patterson, Justin Ademilola, Jurkovec, Keys, Boykin and Flemister. Unless I missed someone, other than those names I don’t think many seem even that close to be up to 4 game candidates at this point.
I wouldnt worry too much about that. I mean, how many games are we actually going to risk playing freshmen anyway? Maybe this one, next week, and the next week. That leaves you still with one game before you burn their redshirt. I dont see any other games on the sched where you’d risk it. Definitely not against Stan, VT, USC. Probably not against Navy, FSU, NW, Syracuse. The only possible remaining game is Pitt and even then I dont think you’d risk it
When was the last time ND scored 60+? (edit: UMass, 2015) I smell that kind of output tomorrow. 66-27. 2 Defensive/Special Teams TDs. +5 in TO margin.
Mark it.
They’re going to score 27 on our defense while also turning the ball over 5+ times? Make the defense run all the stadium steps for allowing 27 to Ball State and then follow it up with a pizza party for the 5 TOs.
66 points is a lot of possessions for Ball St. and gets the 3rd unit in for a lot of snaps.
Real talk: BSU hasn’t had a winning record in the MAC since 2013 and they play football games on Tuesdays, winning by anything less than 4 scores should be viewed as a poor performance of some magnitude.
I’ll predict 38-10 mid third quarter when starters become difficult to find on the field and 48-17 final.
I want to see the Ademilola’s get a ton of snaps in this game. Jayson is already in line for some playing time due to the MTA injury, but it would be cool to get to see both of them on the field together in their 2nd game of their careers as true freshmen.
1) I’d like to see the 1st team defense really dominate. I do believe that Ball State’s offense is not the dumpster fire it was last year, and Neal is fairly solid, but much bending would be a disappointment. Force a bunch of 3 and outs, ideally some havoc/turnovers, and chill in the second half. If by the end of the game the Cardinals have 21 points from garbage time against freshmen who really cares.
2) I think we’ll see BW air it out a decent amount. Last year against Miami (Ohio version, not the nightmare at Hard Rock) there was a lot of pass attempts in the first half even up 20+. There’s still some figuring out of how to distribute carries at RB, but they can figure that out no matter who is in the game. I think they’ll want to get Wimbush and the receivers some more live attempts against a defense that’s like going from playing on Heisman-level difficulty to JV.
3) If we give up another sizeable kickoff return, because we are trying to build Doerer’s confidence and see if we can hang it high and tackle instead of just having Yoon kick touchbacks, I’m going to be mad.
3a) Or if we have Doerer do anything other than just kick touchbacks. THERE’S NO VALUE TO IT, GUYS.
Seriously on the kickoffs. TOUCHBACKS
I am on Team Redshirt Doerer
One of the podcast–Irish Illustrated, I think–made the point that Yoon WANTS to kick off. This is his senior year, he’s got to show NFL teams he can do everything they want, and most (all?) NFL teams don’t waste a roster spot with a FG kicker AND a kickoff specialist when they can have one person do both. So I say let Yoon kick off, but bring in Doerer a few times a game if you’re worried that Yoon’s leg will tire out, with strict instructions to Doerer to kick it into the endzone and nothing else.
This is one of those games where really good teams put up embarrassing points and stats against an overmatched opponent. I know they had a lot of injuries last year, but worst in FBS is a lower tier than a good FCS team. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to cover the spread while scoring at least 50.
I love that Eric can bring the feeling of pessimism even to playing Ball St.!
If I recall I remember seeing somewhere last year that historically even Alabama struggles at covering 30+ point spreads so I’m not too worried about final score, I just want to see some good play, some good reps for Wimbush (throwing) and no injuries.
The ideal is to have a game uneventful enough that all the weekend recaps go “ND won XX to YY against a MAC team…next we’ll talk about how Washington lost to…” No injuries, win by enough that no one bothers to talk about us, but we’ll dissect the freshman and Wimbush and so on, because it’s an extended scrimmage. Get reps all the way around.
I think it will be something along the lines of 35-3, with probably Book working in prior to that, and then we start bringing subs in wholesale. Final somewhere along the lines of 52-17.
On big spread games, I always figure it is just there to allow diehard gamblers to have fun. It is silly to worry about it. Cruise to an easy victory.
Wimbush should play enough so that he works on his accuracy on the short and deep balls. Depending on efficiency, that probably takes a half. He shouldn’t be calling his own number on an RPO unless they put everyone inside the tackles and he can walk to the endzone. We need to see Armstrong/Jones do some inside running.
With any luck, Book plays the 3rd Q and Jurkovec the 4th. Both should run the full offense.
The Brian Kelly coaching twig looks like it might get even smaller – https://twitter.com/BlackBearsFB/status/1038626105270386688