Ball State Football Game Recap: Year 100 Starts with a Win Over Missouri State

all right Cardinal fans we got our first win under our belt in the first game of the season took an extra week to get to compared to every other team in the country I'm pretty silly that that's how that had to go down but Ball State gets a win over Missouri State 42-34 um it didn't quite end how I think we all would have hoped it would have if we could have kind of put Missouri State away a little bit more but we're going to kind of go through I draw down some notes throughout the game and kind of just give a brief recap if you weren't able to watch the game um this kind of give you kind of get you caught up a little bit more than maybe just reading the box scor is going to be so uh first game of the year Ball State was minus two and a half points so less than a field goal favorite at home against FCS opponent now uh Missouri state is a pretty good FCS opponent they're moving up into the football bowl subdivision next year they're going to be in Conference USA so they are a good team but you know you'd really hope at home supposed to be you know a better a better team you're hoping maybe you'd see that spread a little bit more but that's what the spread was over under was 50 and a half which obviously that hit as well um so if you're a betting man and you you wanted to double down on Ball State with the spread and the over you would have been a double winner this week so game starts off uh ball state receives they H get the ball 25 yard line to touch back and first play of the game they run reverse with Cam picket it looks like it's pretty much bottled up and dead in the back field but he puts in a great effort um and actually gets some positive yards out of it but but there's a downside of this play we get a we get an injury Ty Robinson hurts his hand we don't see him the rest of the game so at this point that's a wide receiver down this week in practice another one down the first play of the game we're getting kind of thin um at wide receiver so uh we're doing a lot of east west offense in this drive and Missouri State's pretty much bottling it up pretty well um we do get a first down on a 13 yd pass to Malcolm Gilly um but we're sacked on the next play um I think sza maybe held the ball a little bit long um and then there's a false start we have to punt and give the ball back to Missouri State so first play of offense where uh for Missouri state is a big gain 49 yards up the sideline to pass and that's pretty much most of the offense that they're going to have in the entire half um then there's a big loss and a sack on the third down of that play from the interior line is a great great effort in the first half from the defense specifically the IND the defensive line getting a lot of pressure not letting the quarterback have a lot of time to really examine the field and figure out where he's going to go with the ball so they force a punt um as well pretty much right away so side note so I have some notes written here throughout um throughout the uh the paper on the side here and the 100th logo so this is the H 100th year balls football this team 100 as they're called themselves we have an awesome logo um for this 100th anniversary not having it be off the 50 yard line is pretty crazy to me it seems like a perfect spot you can see when you're watching the game that that dancing Charlie is like a insert that you can kind of take on and off and so not having that 100th logo seems like a big Miss uh for me but that's beside the point of the actual game okay so Ball State gets the ball back Tanner coil first down catch okay so they're running they're they're running Tempo they're kind of getting things going faster but they're trying to establish the run at this point it's not really working very well so the first big play of the game comes on this draft unfortunately and it's going to be a pick six for Missouri State so they're going to go up with 559 left in the first quarter they're going to go up Seven nothing so basically it seemed like whoever the receiver was on the play Maybe turned around a little too slow or simono was a little early with the ball I'm not really sure exactly how that works um or who's at fault but basically hits off his hands hits off another Missouri State player and the guy catches it and basically takes it takes it to the house and think giv like 59 yard return or something like that and sza had a chance to tackle him but ended up being five on one you know that's never really going to get done so 7 nothing early Missouri State um we don't like that so okay so then we get the ball back three straight um Braden Sloan runs end up getting a first down out of that um the cam pick it end round they've run it now twice at this point in the game I think they run it third time and it's you know gets a nice game all right and then they make a note on the broadcast about the offensive line the offensive line you know ends up having a great game and they're the most experienced offensive line in the max so you know with a young with a young starting quarterback that's something that's going to be you know really his best friend outside of you know having some Dynamic weapons which it seems like wall State might have a little bit more than we even thought so the offense is methodically moving the ball but they're not really taking any big shots they're not really getting any big chunk plays they are moving the ball but you know they're not really necessarily capitalizing and finishing off these drives all right so first quarter comes to an end Missouri State 7even ball state zero all right and so first play of the second quarter is actually a field goal attempt from Ball State 38 yards out no good we don't like to see that you know when we get in the range where we think our kicker is going to make kicks we want them to make make those kicks you know pretty much every time and so 1456 left in the second quarter Missouri State's can to get the ball back up seven to nothing a note at this point in the game bolate is crushing them in time of possession and yards it's 115 to 37 yards in favor of Ball State but again it's 7 nothing Missouri State and then the two biggest miscues in the game at this point are both Ball State uh with the turnover versus pick six and the Miss field goal so you know that's theoretically 10 points right there that they've missed out on SLG given away so so we're back on defense now and there's been a handful of times um which again Missouri state has hardly had the ball at all at this point where their quarterback has kind of just been off he's missing receivers they might they're not really on the same page so there's a very quick three and out it's a good answer defensively um you know to kind of keep it in check you want to keep it a one score game as often as you can okay so ball gets the ball back around Midfield um this is the first time we see Kyle Kelly in at quarterback for play um I really like the fact that he decided to stay at Ball State um and if you don't if you're not aware he was the starting quarterback some last year and he is actually playing cornerback for them now now my issue is and has nothing to do with him per se it's the fact that if he's going to if they're going to come in and have him run these packages where he's going to be in on offense as well I think that's great he's a dynamic playmaker I don't know that having him come in at quarterback and take Kaden sza out of the game is the best fit I if if maybe they want to bring him in as a running back or wide receiver in some capacity and run a gadget Play that way you can get maybe a nice double pass off or something like that that seems a little bit more creative than just having him come in um you know for one for I think he end up coming in three snaps to this game I don't really like it I don't like how they did it I like the player I just don't like the way that they tried to put this together I think that's something they should you know get out of here I don't think we should be doing that anymore um so Sans has a nice shovel pass to Sloan which will that will come into play again later on for a nice third down conversion nice game at this point in the game they have nine first downs to Missouri State's one all right and so they're driving down the field Von pton almost scores a touchdown he trips up if he doesn't trip up he's going to score for sure and I was worried at that point that they were not going to score um and or they were going to have to kick the field goal instead and that touchdown would just kind of haunted us but on Third and goal Kaden sanza gets a big scramble ends up being like 15 yards so so 919 left in the second quarter it's all tied up 77 all right so at this point they're finally able to finish a drive we get some points out of this you could kind of tell up to this point offensively at least there was some Rust that you know not playing last week um was kind of showing and Missouri State having a chance to play was um they had a little bit of an edge with that um but that rust is starting to come off at this point for the offense and the defense is obviously playing great at this point they've given up you know hardly any yards really then the only points were off offensive turnover all right so Missouri State back on offense they get a nice gain 19 yards up the middle pass to tight end which we'll get in we'll get into that later but they basically have bottled up the rest of the series and another quick series from Missour State ball State's going to get the ball back all right so ball State's next offensive Drive Kaden San is doing a pretty good job of kind of taking what the defense has giving him you know he might be scanning looking to go left and everything's covered over there so he's dumping it right and he's he's doing a pretty good job with his decision making and you know trying to get this ball moving a little bit the the drive kind of stalls around Midfield and they go decide the defense has played so well um it's fourth and one at Midfield we're going to go for it and if for some reason we don't get it our defense is playing great well we don't get the first down so momentum swing definitely in the favor of Missouri C at this point they're going to get the ball back basically around Midfield all right so again turnover on Downs at Midfield you don't love that um but Missouri State fumbles it but Ball State can't recover it um so ball State's going to take a Timeout on Fourth and three it's another quick three and out for the defense so they're going to get off the field here again so at this point late in the half about a minute and 45 seconds left we're going to run our two-minute offense um in the first we got two minutes left basically two timeouts um so you know you have a chance obviously you want to go down try and get any points you can and so in this scenario the first play We Run for whatever reason is a run up the Middle with under two minutes ago too two timeouts left I don't really love that I you know the defense is going to kind of be in a little bit of a prevent set and I didn't love it obviously I'm not an expert on x's and O of football like you know some people are but that just kind of sniffed out from the very beginning that that was not going to work and that just seemed kind of like a a dud call so uh and then they get a nice gain cam pick it get up the sideline he just barely steps out if he doesn't step out he's scoring um but he just steps out it's about 18 yard gain and then uh San's overthrows pick it he was wide open uh fumbled snap picked up lost yards you know not the best use of this two-minute offense it wasn't that impressive unfortunately so we go into halftime It's s to7 so the offense was moving the ball um but again not very many explosive play up to this point um Kaden s is looking good he's still learning you know he's still making some some minor mistakes but he's looking pretty good um you know unfortunately with the with the current state of college football every good game that someone at Ball State has is kind of like the final nail in their coffin of their career at Ball State because more often than not at some point they're going to be gone now so he's having a great game and so unfortunately I don't know what that means long term I hope he ends up staying for us but uh the defense has played great at this point in the first half they basically gave up nothing aside from the first play of the game and um yeah turnover and a misfield guard the two big mistakes in the half and unfortunately they're both happened to Ball State so you never love that but you know we're on to the second half it's tied 7 seven all right so kickoff Missouri state gets the ball again the Missouri State quarterback is is pretty off at this point he's not really connecting very well with the receivers so I don't know if it's communication thing or I know they kept showing his kind of his throwing hand was maybe hurt at some point I can't remember if it was at this point in the game but they have another really quick three and out you know they have the ball for less than two minutes start this off um so at this point you're thinking okay the defense is playing really well if we can just kind of maybe score 10 more points maybe this game should be a lock if the defense can keep playing that way well at the beginning of the second half neither offense decided that they were going to do much so Ball State gets the ball back quick three and out we kick it back Missouri state gets the ball another quick three and out they do muff the punt um but they do recover it so um they do finally so once ball gets the ball back here in the you know probably middle stage of the third quarter we finally do take a shot deep and although it's not completion we do draw a personal uh a pass interference excuse me so again drives going a little bit more third and four inside handoff okay so basically if it's third and four you're handing off at that point it's pretty a clear indication in my opinion you're at BR Midfield that you're going to go for and that's exactly what they did and unfortunately um they get stuffed again on fourth down at Midfield they get so they get sto actually they they try to pass and S takes a sack and that's you know as a young guy he'll he'll learn that but you know that's pretty bad in that scenario because you know they're right on the plus side of the 50 I believe he takes a sack um now they're on now Missouri State's getting the ball on their plus side because of the sack so it's he gave him basically 10 free yards there just kind of throw it away you're giving him an extra short field we don't like that the defense is playing great um you know you can argue right there that the defense has been playing so good you want to kick it deep you want to punt and make Missouri State earn those points having to go the whole field against Ball State Defense that defense at that point they don't do that so you know that's a little frustrating there's some things definitely that are frustrating coaching wise that we'll get into later on one thing that is extremely inexcusable but um that's kind of where we're at right there I thought they would have kicked it deep made him earn it but they didn't they give it to him the plus side and you'll see basically what happens here shortly so um so yeah so basically once that happens Missouri State quickly hits a pass and takes it down to the 5 yard line and boom with 550 left the next play after that in the third quarter they scored touchdown 14-7 ball St so you know again those 14 points that they've given up at this point have been off of a pick six from our offense and then they got a really short field because of that sack on fourth down so you can't really fault the defense too much at this point for those points but you're just going to have to you know keep relying on them and hopefully the offense can eventually start you know finishing drives off and scoring some points okay so they get the ball back afterwards and they immediately respond in score touchdown they actually convert on a fourth down so they had been over two on fourth down before this they convert with a 41 yard touchdown pass to Malcolm Gilly amazing effort on his behalf he would not go down he was fighting through tackles ends up scoring 41 yards so with 2 minutes and 31 seconds left it's 1414 so it's 1414 late in the third quarter uh and so a note on on that drive they actually threw Ball State actually threw an interception on this drive that would have been a pick six as well so it would have been 21 to7 but there was defensive holding so it get wiped off the board so instead of being 21 to7 it ends up being 1414 by the end of this drive so that was a huge um penalty in ball State's favor at this point in the game ball state has not really committed any penalties and really Missouri State hasn't committed very many either but yeah that was a big swing point in this game because instead of going down 14 you know you're all tied up on the next play on the kickoff they force a fumble and recover it deep in uh Missouri State's territory Ball State gets the ball right back after they've scored and tied it up all right so they run a couple plays Sans actually fumbles here on in one of these plays but Ball State do recover goes to the fourth quarter switchins remember we talked earlier that shovel pass boom shovel pass again to Salone 11 yard touchdown so 1455 left so they've scored two touchdowns here basically in no time um there is 1455 left in fourth quarter ball st's up 21 to 14 I got my notes right here shovel passes King they ran it twice in this game both times um you know it came out great obviously they scored on one of them but um so kickoff now now Missouri state has been moving the ball a lot better in this half they haven't really necessarily scored um a ton of points obviously they have seven points off uh of their offense and it was off a short field but they're moving the ball a lot better compared to the first half um that is until they throw an interception it was kind of a funky play uh they threw an interception to Ball State so we get the ball back but he fumbles it out of bounds and it's was like a he didn't have possession for super long so they were trying to review to see if he was an incomplete pass or whatever but yeah so was interception fumble out of bounce ball keeps the ball it's the second turnover um of the half for Missouri State if you remember the first half the only turnover that happened was um a ball sa interception so now they're flipping the script and kind of turn in the turnover battle in our favor here now and we're going to have a short field to to um for the offense and they take a shot right away you know they had got the ball like within that 30 to 40 yard range off a turnover they're going to take a shot right away so they score a couple plays later Sans is able to get outside the pocket and kind of avoid the pressure and avoid getting sack throws a touchdown to Keon magwood for 17 yards so with 11 minutes and 49 seconds left ball stes up two scores 28 to 14 so they've scored with three touchdowns here you know you know pretty quick another note I have here some big hits on kickoff coverage so I don't know exactly who they were I didn't get the names of who obviously someone you know forced to Fumble the kickoff before and then someone laid a big hit on this kickoff so the kick off coverage team is hitting hard and so again they had a nice um so now Missouri State's back on offense they had a nice gain earlier in the game um that tight end right up the middle and they just kind of got left for like 14 yards well this one is much bigger uh tight end up the up the middle for a ton of yards um let's see how I can tell you right now exactly how how long of a touchdown that was plays one moment it's my first time doing this so trying to kind of get all that I believe it was 57 yards 57 yards right at the middle to the tight end touchdown 28-21 Ball State with n and a half minutes left kicks off to Ball State Malcolm Gilly big return um he takes it all the way to the plus 47 yd line from either the end zone or right around the end zone so that's a nice big return there now we're kind of starting to get tanner coal going here he has a big third down conversion gets him in a gold to go scenario and then second big catch on the drive a touchdown it's awesome throw from Kaden sanso we only Tanner coal could get it so again we're getting this score scoring going here it was what was it 1414 going into the fourth quarter and now with that touchdown there seven minutes left and it's 35 to 21 and so offense needed to get going uh and they needed a half to really do it they need to knock off the rust and kind of get used to everybody but they certainly have it all going now at this point now the defense on the other hand um not as much unfortunately all right so obviously I'm very happy that ballate won this game I don't know how many wins we're going to have on the schedule this year um so I don't want to be too negative here but this drive was horrific and it's basically it wasn't even necessarily the play as much as it was the mental game that we have all right so let me break down this portion of it for you on this drive we have offside on a third down obviously that's going to extend the drive we have a defensive pass interference on a play where we intercepted the ball so that another time where the the drive would have went over and then the worst one of all it's Fourth and 10 okay we get called for offsides again so now it's Fourth and five okay pretty bad but not the end of the world the next play that happens I have never seen before in all the years I've watched football and I cannot even believe that this happened so I believe leave Missouri State called a timeout so you know obviously there's a timeout fourth and five everyone's kind of on the field doing their thing well Ball State is in the Huddle just kind of doing whatever I don't even know how they could be taking this long to be doing what they're trying to do they're in the Huddle Missouri State's on the ball they the ref spots the ball he gets back he he gets he Tes he runs the play clock he's ready to go so they literally are lining up on the ball and the team is in the back field they're just standing in a huddle talking to the coaches so Missouri State snaps the ball to no one in front of them it's literally like they're running offense versus Air in practice but in an actual game and so they score a touchdown thankfully by you know a technicality it's technically off sides on ball State's behalf because the entire team is behind the land of scribbage so the play doesn't technically happen but again it was fourth and 10 they took a penalty off sides and then they had this which is the worst thing I've ever seen I cannot believe this even happened at the division one level so technically it's Fourth and five so that gives them a first down and so then of course they're run to end around to no one trying to stop them and score and now it's 3527 with a minute and 57 left so if I can find a picture of that I'll I'll have put it in here at this point but I could not believe that whoever is responsible for that I don't know if it's the head coach I don't know if it's the defensive coordinator that is ridiculous that is embarrassing that that happened we cannot have that happen again where we're just standing off to the side and the play is going and there's nobody in on defense literally had no one on defense for a whole play and the Missouri State coach was was pretty mad that the touchdown didn't stay and I'm I can't argue that obviously the technicality is that we were offside so it didn't count but it was crazy I could I that happened hours ago and I still can't get over the fact that it happened all right so then they're down by um what eight at this point so they they go for an onside kick we recover it thankfully so the game you know they think M has two timeouts left at this point or something like that so you know basically if we get a couple first downs you know we're good to go um but Kaden SLO says you know I'm just going to end it right now boom he has a 40- yard touchdown run on third down mind you so um you know that was big just even pick it up so now it's a minute left it's 4227 ball State's up okay so there's a minute left in the game another bad penalty on the defense there was we just were stacking penalties on the defense in the second half I don't know what happened we weren't hardly penalized at all in the first half um pass interference with 24 seconds left are you kidding me we're getting penalized 24 seconds left and Missouri State scores again so it's 4234 um they basically have one one more chance to you know onside kick and it doesn't get done for them so wall state does end up winning we final score 4234 um is kind of a tail to hals for both sides of the ball the defense was amazing in the first half and then kind of fell off in the second half and got kind of undisciplined and had one of the more embarrassing plays that I've ever seen and I'm a Colts fan who saw them try to run the worst fake pun of all time but and then the offense you know was kind of sluggish in the first half um but then you know really put on a good show in the second half I was pretty pleased to see that so again had to wait an extra week to get the win but we got the win um hopefully you know it's the first of many this year we'll see about that um next week obviously big game tough game at Miami um I haven't seen what the scor is they're playing right now as I'm recording this but it's any it's you know any given Saturday and so you know last week Notre Dame was the apple of everyone's eye after winning that Texas A&M and then they go down to Northern Illinois today um so you know anything can happen they're obviously a very good team so we we'll have to check it out I'll actually be in attendance I live about 90 minutes away from hard Rock stadium where Miami plays so I'll be there I'll be shooting some videos throughout the game and you know posting them as many as I can but um yeah I'm hoping for a fun game and you know obviously I don't expect a win basically what we want to come have come out of here is look as good as we can and not have anybody get hurt um that's kind of you know what you hope for in a game like this get out of there with your money and your team intact so um we'll see I hope everyone in that locker room is expecting to win um but as a fan who's going to be there in the stands you know just you know hopefully we we look all right and no one gets hurt so um yeah uh hope everyone enjoyed this recap you know it's the first of of many uh it they'll get better as they go but I just wanted to give it a try and uh there's not really any accounts out there right now who are doing video content as fans obviously Ball State Sports Cent does an amazing job of covering stuff but those are obviously they're affiliated with the school this is UN Affiliated podcast all these um thoughts are my own as everyone says I have no affiliation with Ball State un so again good win Ball State 42 Missouri State 34 and we'll we'll talk again soon