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.

Ball State 20

Notre Dame 51