It’s late-July and much of the country is being eaten alive by heat and humidity, but in that soupy. miserable stillness a faint whisper can be heard. “Football” echoes in the humid calm and can be heard late at night in-between the kids begging us to watch the newest Marvel cash grab and it reminds us that the time is coming where we don’t have to pretend to care about Barbie movies or argue with our wives about what terrible TV show to stream on one of the 15 overpriced streaming services that have been forced upon us. Football is almost here and much like players are reporting to fall camp it’s time for us fans to get in the right physical and mental headspace. Today we look at Kentucky’s first opponent: the Ball State Cardinals.
Series History
Kentucky and Ball State have played just once before and that was a 28-20 Kentucky win during the 2001 season. Kentucky was led by back-up QB Shane Boyd and RB Chad Scott (who was recently named OC at WVU). The two programs have not met since which is frankly kind of shocking considering the proximity of the two programs and our love of playing MAC schools in non-conference.
2022 Season Look Back
Last season Ball State finished 5-7 in Mike Neu’s 7th season. Despite the frustrating record there were signs of life. They were 4-4 one possession games in a very competitive MAC conference including a one-point loss to on the final week of the season to hated rival Miami (OH). They played Tennessee in Game 1 last year and lost 59-10.
Offensively they were one of the least efficient passing teams in the country last season and that unit was led by power back Carson Steele who rushed for 1500+ yards and scored 14 TD’s and a solid OL. They produced very few explosive plays, and it caused them to stall (sounds familiar eh?).
Defensively the Cardinals were…bang average. Very few takeaways and not particularly great at stopping either the run or pass but perfectly competent at keeping opponents out of the endzone by the end of the season.
2023 Outlook
Mike Neu is back for his 8th season so there is continuity at the top even if it’s not very accomplished. He’s 33-48 in 7 seasons but did win the MAC and finished in the top 25 in 2020 during the COVID season. That season seems to be a bit of an outlier, though they did follow up that season with another bowl appearance in 2021.
Carson Steele has gone to UCLA but he was replaced by former Kent State RB Marquez Cooper. Cooper is a different style of back (much smaller but probably more dynamic) but just as effective. He rushed for 2800 yards and 29 TD’s in three seasons with the Golden Flashes. 3 starters off the solid OL are back as well as two very solid TE’s that combined for over 800 receiving yards and 12 TD’s last season in Brady Hunt and Tanner Koziol.
At QB they’ve brought in transfer Layne Hatcher who was a 3-star recruit that started out at Alabama before being 4 year starter in the Sun Belt at Arkansas State (3 years) and Texas State (last season). In 4 seasons he’s put up over 10K yards and 84 TD’s and did it fairly efficiently on some not great teams. They’ve completely overhauled the WR position after basically getting nothing out of that group last year but with a significant upgrade at QB I wouldn’t be shocked to see some young guys look a lot better.
Defensively the front 7 is mostly back which means they expect to be solid at best and could possibly take a massive leap with more experience. The unit is undersized compared to what Kentucky will be facing in the SEC but will be active and the Kentucky OL struggled with that last year (having PTSD to that NIU game). Secondary wasn’t great last year and they overhauled that position as well with several P5 portal additions. If the front 7 can generate more negative plays and more pressure that secondary could see more opportunities for takeaways, if not then it will likely be a work in progress.
Who Wins
Kentucky should win and it should be a comfortable 4th quarter. Ball State will likely be improved but with so many new faces they’ll take a little more time to hit their stride. Kentucky is in a bit of a transition (especially offensively) as well but is far more talented.
I do expect the game to be closer than we want it to be through HT just because we know how Stoops approaches these early non-conference games. He often throws out vanilla looks on both sides of the ball and gives guys chances to win their individual matchups, which is a fine approach because it lets guys go out and show what they can do but can often lead to goofs that can be exploited by well coached G5 teams.
Kentucky wins 31-13 and we’ll see some really promising offensive flashes as Coen gets to open things up with Leary/Key/Brown.
