Blog…Ball State: BCS Bowl Bound?

Jason Whitlock is pumped. And why shouldn’t he be? The former Ball State university football player and longtime sportswriter must be licking his chops after his Cardinals pounded Northeastern University 48-14 last Thursday night before 13,068 fans in Muncie, Indiana.

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The Cardinals, lead by junior quarterback Nate Davis, rolled up 487 yards of total offense on the Huskies, including nearly 300 yards through the air. The defense, at times much maligned last year, held the Huskies to only 14 points and 93 yards on the ground, perhaps hinting at a significant improvement which will carry on throughout the season.

A fine opening day performance by any account, perhaps even one worthy to convince your average Mid-American conference follower that the Cardinals are bound for Detroit and the MAC Title game by season’s end. But a BCS bowl game?

Believe it or not that’s Whitlock’s take on the 2008 Ball State Cardinals, a point which he defends vehemently in a recent FoxSports.com column. Whitlock, whose use of “we” and “my” do little to disguise his partisan nature, argues that Ball State’s offense and its 11 returning starters this year make the Eagles not only the team to beat in the MAC, but the team to run the table and “bust the BCS.”

It is an interesting concept altogether, and one which may not originally sound as crazy as Whitlock would have you believe. He’s dead on with regard to Ball State’s offense, which does in fact return every member from last year’s unit (which averaged 31.5 points per game) while at the same time making a convincing point for the improvement of Ball State’s defense, which brings back seven starters from 2007. But do these impressive and oft-cited numbers really make Ball State a possible BCS bowl contender, or do they merely point to what we’ve long speculated coming into the season- namely that Ball State could and perhaps should be considered a favorite to win the MAC West, but nothing more?

Obviously the answer won’t be revealed until the season concludes, but for the time being it seems as thought the most likely outcome would be that Ball State has little, if any chance to actually make it to a BCS bowl game. Why you ask? Well, the problem with Whitlock’s analysis and prediction is that it fails to take into account the rest of the conference, and once more looks past the critical factors which are needed for non-BCS teams to “crash” the BCS bowl party.

With regards to the former point, Whitlock seems to dismiss most of the MAC as not up to the level of Ball State, arguing that the removal of talent-laden BCS conference teams from the schedule helps the Cardinals in their quest for the BCS:

There's no Michigan (who we almost beat in 2006) or Illinois (we scared them last year on the road) or Nebraska (a dropped pass separated us from victory) on this year's schedule. We play Northeastern, Western Kentucky and the rest of the MAC

Like Ball State’s chances “on paper,” Whitlock’s argument seems to make sense. Yet to overlook the MAC and its members would be a mistake, especially considering the parity that has developed in the conference over the past two seasons. Consider for a moment that no MAC team has run the table in conference over the past two seasons, with even two-time defending league champion Central Michigan falling to a 4-8 Eastern Michigan club in 2007. Furthermore, consider that Ball State has two challenging and back-to-back November road games against Western and Central Michigan, two teams not to be overlooked. While Whitlock is able to dismiss these challenges to what he presumes will be Ball State’s “momentum, chemistry and experience” during the second half of the season, one has to keep in mind the similar potency of both the WMU and CMU offenses, as well as the similar experience levels of both teams return from 2007(WMU returns 17 total starters; CMU returns 16.) In other words, both the Central and Western Michigan fans could very well make the same case as Whitlock for their own teams, and in the case of the Central Michigan the Chippewas has the win over Ball State last season to fall back on.

There’s also the question of Ball State’s defense, a question which Whitlock is able to avoid through his “catalogue” of players. While Ball State did hold Northeastern (a 3-8 team in the CAA last season) to only 14 points in week one, the Cardinals were by no means dominant defensively, giving up over 300 yards of total offense in the contest. In addition to this ominous figure, one has to keep in mind that Ball State was +17 in turnover ration in 2007, a figure which can often be indicative of a team’s “luckiness” the year before (for further reading, may I recommend Phil Steele’s “Turnover=Turnaround “article found in his magazine.) Taking nothing away from Ball State’s defense, they likely won’t have the same kind of success forcing turnovers in 2008, and will have to rely on real, genuine improvement to overcome some of the explosive offenses they face throughout the year.

Interestingly enough, Ball State’s first real test defensively of the season will come this Friday night against the Navy Midshipmen, who themselves come into the game having thoroughly defeated a Colonial Athletic Conference opponent in week one. While it has become somewhat chic again for fans and media members to pencil in the Midshipmen amongst the “should win” games on their respective team’s schedules, overlooking Navy’s potent triple option offense is something the Cardinals can ill afford to do. After all, in last week’s contest in Annapolis the Midshipmen rolled up 521 yards on the ground against the Cardinals, who were lucky to get out of Annapolis with an overtime win despite being the beneficiaries of two costly Navy turnovers and two blocked field goals. The Mids, who return an explosive backfield lead by slotback Shun White (328 yards rushing in week one) will likely move the ball at will against the Cardinals, and could present major problems for Ball State if they can avoid the costly turnovers which hurt them last season.

Yet even if Ball State can get past the Midshipmen, and even if the Cardinals do defeat Indiana on September 20th, there is no guarantee the Cardinals run the table all the way to a BCS bowl game. Aside from those pesky conference road tests at Western Michigan and Central Michigan (themselves both likely to be in the hunt for a MAC title) in November, the Cardinals will likely have to contend with factors outside of their control- namely the BCS poll as well the fate of teams like Brigham Young, Utah, and Fresno State.

Busting the BCS is, after all, only half about what a team actually does during the season. Factors such as conference competitiveness, fan following, and preseason expectations often have just as much, if not more, to do with a team’s ability to make it into a BCS bowl game. As far as Ball State’s prospects go in these departments, things aren’t looking so hot for the Cardinals. Much of it, I’m sad to say, has to do with how the Mid American Conference is perceived. I mean hey, when your two-time defending conference champion is only coming off of an 8-5 season in which they were embarrassed at home by an FCS opponent, well, I don’t need to tell you that causes some PR problems. While Bowling Green’s upset of Pitt in week one could go a long way to improving the conference’s notoriety in the minds of the BCS poll voters, for the time being it seems unlikely that even a team that goes undefeated in MAC play would appear strong enough in both the computer and human polls to make it into a BCS bowl game. While it is not out of the question that a MAC champion (and 13-0) Ball State team could make it into the Top 16 of the BCS rankings, such a prospect remains unlikely considering where the Cardinals started the season. Much of this scenario also depends on how teams such as BYU and Fresno State finish the season as well. If BYU (which started the season ranked) can run the table, Ball State can kiss any outside chance at a BCS bowl game goodbye.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Ball State. Longtime followers of my column know that I’ve picked the Cardinals to win the MAC West on numerous occasions, while at the same time declaring quarterback Nate Davis to be the next Ben Roethlisberger. Yet to me the MAC conference just cannot support a BCS bowl team at this point- not necessarily because it won’t be good enough, but rather because the perception of the conference isn’t up to the standards of the MWC or WAC, which oh by the way both support multiple BCS bowl hopefuls this year. Furthermore it seems almost naïve for Whitlock, himself a product of the MAC, to gloss over the increasing parity of the conference. Even if Ball State does run the table within the conference (itself a very dicey scenario considering back to back late-season road trips to Western and Central Michigan) they’ll still have to win the MAC Title game, and once more will have to hope that none of the other prominent non-BCS teams make it through their season’s unscathed. Now I don’t know about you, but there seem to be a lot of “ifs” in those scenarios, and as good as I think Ball State’s offense can be, they haven’t shown the defensive ability or dominance to set there own stage at a BCS bowl run.

If 2007 taught us anything about college football, it’s that the twelve week span between late August and early December should best be regarded by the old adage “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” And in the Mid-American Conference, where once perennial punching bags like Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, and Temple look poised to rebound, running the table is far from assured for even the conference’s preseason favorites. Ball State may very well win nine or ten games in 2008, and heck, they may even win the MAC and breeze to a conference title. But without coming into the season ranked, and without a statement game against a major BCS conference opponent, you’ll be hard-pressed to convince this college football fanatic that they’ll find themselves n a BCS bowl game by the end of 2008.

But hey, you can’t blame Whitlock for trying.

Adam Nettina covers MAC East and Independent football for College FootballNews.com.

Past Stories:

Despite Injuries, Navy "O" Gearing Up
Gill's Bulls Looking For Bowl in 2008
Best of the Non BCS Quarterbacks
Central Michigan Looks for Repeat
Max Hall, Heisman Candidate?
Business Time for Niumatalolo and Navy
Can a Non-BCS Player Win the Heisman?
Keeping the “Inc” Out of Army Navy
MAC Teams Poised to Strike Back in ‘08
For Navy, Tougher Slate in 2008