Well, at least one of these teams are having a successful season, and it's not the team from Muncie, Indiana.
The Cardinals were beating Western Michigan the entire game on Saturday, but the Broncos were able to sneak by and win it at the end, 42-38. Ball State has lost five straight and have yet to beat an FBS program this season. Central Michigan, on the other hand, just had a big win over Northern Illinois last week (34-17), and they are still over .500 on the year. They even can boast about beating Big 10 opponent Purdue in the second week of the season.
On the bright side, there is a new player that the Cardinals can get excited about, and that player is quarterback Jack Milas. Last week was Milas' first start and he did tremendous throwing for 326 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. That is extremely good news for Ball State fans knowing that they may just have another Keith Wenning on our hands.
Cooper Rush, Central Michigan's quarterback, has put up some decent numbers this year, but nothing near to what Milas did in his debut. His last game against Northern Illinois was one of his better outings. He threw for 269 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He's good, but Central Michigan is focusing much more on their running attack over their passing attack lately.
Central Michigan has turned their running back Thomas Rawls into the workhorse of their offense. In the past two games he has had a combined 80 touches and has ran for 229 yards and 270 yards respectively. He has found the endzone twice in both games as well. He already has 840 total yards on the year and he missed two games in the middle of the season. Look for Rawls to continue get a ridiculous amount of carries against the Cardinals this weekend.
Ball State has a good running attack of their own with Jawhan Edwards as the feature back. On the year he has 609 yards total and averages five yards per carry. He didn't have the greatest performance against Western Michigan, averaging only three yards per carry. I'd imagine with Milas performing well, this may open some holes for Edwards now that this offense isn't completely relying on the running game. Horactio Banks can also be a dangerous rusher, rushing for 41 yards and averaging 6.1 yards per carry against Western Michigan.
There hasn't been any outstanding receivers for Ball State this year. Most expected Jordan Williams to be extremely dominant this year, but until last week he didn't do much. Last week he had 179 receiving yards and two touchdowns. With Milas as his quarterback, I'd imagine we will continue to see his numbers continue like this.
Central Michigan has one stud receiver of their own, and while healthy he has put up some solid numbers. Titus Davis missed three games already this year but he has managed to eclipse the 100 yard mark twice on the year. He didn't make a huge impact against Northern Illinois reeling in only 54 yards, but I expect him to be the biggest receiving threat against Ball State.
Defensively, Ball State really fell apart against Western Michigan last week. Sure, it's tough for any team to stop Jarvion Franklin, but it wasn't just Franklin that made huge plays. They let up three plays that went for over 50 yards and one play that went for over 75 yards. On top of letting up big plays, they gave up 28 plays in the last half of the game. The Cardinal's offense didn't really show up in the second half but being up 31-14 at one point should have been enough to hold the Broncos off. They will need to think of some way to show up in the second half or trying to stop Thomas Rawls is going to be a nightmare. This isn't even the last time that the defense has lost the game in final seconds of the game. Even against Iowa in week two they blew it within minutes of the end. This is just becoming a recurring theme.
Central Michigan has also had some struggles with their defense as well this year. They have let up over 40 points twice on the year. However, their defense has really played well in certain games, especially against Northern Illinois. Against the Huskies they were able to keep the Huskies to just 4-14 on third down. They also held them to only 110 rushing yards on 33 attempts.
This game will be an uphill battle for the Cardinals, especially playing on the road. Rawls will just be too much for the Cardinals to handle. I don't see Ball State holding Rawls for under 150 yards. However, even if Pete Lembo and his Cardinals don't pull out a W in Mount Pleasant, I think they will continue to make great strides, and sharpen up their offense to hopefully pull out some wins in MAC games coming up.