Keith Wenning's first Homecoming as a starter didn't go as planned
Well that certainly wasn’t the outcome I expected. Shades of last year’s Homecoming implosion were in my mind as I watched Temple totally dominate the Cardinals on Saturday to the tune of 42-0. There really isn’t much to say in this particular recap, as those at the game saw the Cardinals outmatched pretty much all afternoon, especially when Temple desired to flex their muscles in the running game. For a Ball State team that we thought had an effective defensive unit so far, this game presents a whole host of new questions.
First and foremost for me at least is a definite reevaluation of where we thought we were in terms of football. Watching Army get beat by Miami and Indiana lose another one makes me begin to question the strength of the two victories that were the cornerstone of my argument that BSU football was on the mend. Temple is largely considered to be in the top tier of the MAC and to be decimated so convincingly certainly puts the Cardinals place in the conference more towards the bottom than the top.
Offensively, the Cards again struggled and shot themselves in the foot with turnovers, something that didn’t happen in the victories and simply cannot happen in games where the talent level is that different as it was on Saturday. Because of that, the Cards suffered their 4th worst home loss in program history and the first time they’ve been shutout on Homecoming in 35 years. That isn’t the good kind of history to make. Defensively, Temple had two backs go over 100 yards and they pretty much did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.
As if the offense and defense didn’t provide enough frustration, Steven Schott missed his only field goal of the afternoon, and the offensive line had three false start penalties… a rarity for this team. Once again, the crowd was disappointing as well, at an official attendance of just under 12,000. For a Homecoming game, that’s a pitiful number. Very few positives about this game. From the size of the crowd to the performance on the field, it was all shit.
Next week the Cards go on the road as a presumed heavy underdog against potential MAC champion Ohio. If the same sort of performance that we saw this week shows up next week, it’s going to be another long Saturday for BSU.
Filed under: BallStateFootball, MAC |
Over The Pylon 
[…] Temple recovered from being smacked around by Toledo to do the same to Ball State (Over The Pylon: Temple 42 Ball State 0) and Northern Illinois may have found their defense…or maybe they were just playing Kent […]
There was nothing positive to take from this game, save for the fact that it felt more like “we ran into a buzzsaw” than the “OMG we completely suck” feeling I had at last year’s game. Temple is really damned good with a huge O-line and a slobber-knocker of a defense. They are way better than the mediocre WMU team that took us to the woodshed last year. So if you’re looking for a tiny peg to hang your hat on moving forward, there it is…
Thank the tailgating rules, the annual Muncie traffic chaos and the blowout for that attendance. There were easily another 8-10K out in the parking lots who didn’t bother to come in once the carnage was underway. As someone put it on BSUFans.com after the Buffalo game, the 3-hr. tailgating rule is. Killing. This. Program. At. The. Gate. (Speaking of which, it might help to actually count the folks that enter the stadium. Only one of our four tickets got scanned, and there appeared to be no effort to count entrants at the SW gate). On Homecoming, when people haven’t seen classmates for a year or more, casual alums and fans are going to want to socialize. If they’ve been sitting in traffic, costing them a portion of their already-limited, university-alloted visiting time, they are going to make up for it by not going into the game.
All that said, I would have guessed 16K or so in the stadium prior to the mass exodus after falling behind by three TDs. We really need to start giving paid total instead of butts-in-seats.
I hope the team takes this as a wake-up call.