Ball State Cardinals (1-0)
@ Scheumann Stadium, Muncie, Indiana
I will be in attendance for this one, probably my only chance to see my Flames in person this year. Has anyone been to a game at BSU? Familiar with how things are at the stadium? Seems like a decent, yet small, stadium. Attendance for their first game against Southeast Missouri State was about 15k under capacity, hopefully it's like that again and I get a chance to pick where I want to sit, rather than take my assigned, rather crappy, seat.
Anyways, about the actual game... this will be tougher than most LU fans will lead you to believe. We allowed St. Francis to control the line of scrimmage against us quite a bit, and Ball State is going to be worlds better in the O-Line and Running Back department. I have a feeling we're going to need to be aggressive with run blitzes and 8 men in the box, and hope to force passing situations, and then take advantage of mistakes BSU makes. Offensively I don't think we should have a huge problem moving the ball, especially if we open up our offense a bit more than we did in our "tune-up" game.
I think they will be able to run the ball against us. The issue is how dedicated will they be to running, and will we eventually "adjust" to the running game. Their QB was 10/17 for 85 yards and a pick (no TD's) against SEMO, so I don't see him as a huge concern. I am not sure if their ability to run against us is enough to overwhelm us and cause a loss.
We shall see. I am excited about our chance to play and win this game, tho.
