Ball State Headline Hopes To Be Informative

I don't like telling copy editors how to do their job. Mostly because I was a horrible one in college, so what gravitas do I have? Still: the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel could drum up a headline better than "Ball State aims for balance, depth" since, well, all schools want to do that. Same with the subhead: "Coach wants to redshirt freshmen." Yeah, I hear that's a popular thing to do these days.

I know these folks are on deadline, get scrutinized by every little thing they do in print, and must have a pithy summary that fits to the page, but if those are the two takeaways from this story, then you're going to pass the darn article over.

And the Ball State article does have some worthwhile takeaways: it's not just one of those "we hope to compete and do better and be in every game" throwaway articles. What I see here is a story about their defensive end depth, and it's admittedly buried amongst the passages: the Cardinals lost three senior DEs, notably Robert Eddins, who was second-team All MAC as an outside linebacker. But that just leaves Andrew Puthoff as the only upperclassman at the position, so coach Pete Lembo is going to convert Lorren Womack and Ethan Buckles from OLB to DE.

Yeah, I know, it's a story where the author is interviewing Lembo and it's ultimately a glimpse into the rebuilding process. And it's a good one. Despite the headline.