Well no way to hide this one, CMU layed an egg on national television and lost a shot to achieve a winning record. Let's look at the highs (yes there were a few) and lows:
I said in my 5 Keys that the game would be won in the trenches. Ball State dominated on both sides. Plain and simple. They were able to run all over CMU and they loaded the box with 8 & 9 guys on defense all day and essentially dared CMU to throw it down the field on them. Speaking of the 5 Keys...CMU accomplished none of them. Turnovers were huge, they took any steam CMU had of turning this into a shootout. Can't have a -3 in the TO margin of you want to win football games.Credit Ball State on offense. They used a lot of hard counts to bait CMU into showing their defensive look/blitz scheme. Then Wenning would audible out of it or change his reads. CMU wants to be aggressive on defense, but you can tell the players aren't comfortable with the blitzes and don't look comfortable yet. Textbook offense against the 4-2-5 though. Don't like calling out individual players, but when effort is involved I think it's warranted. Brandon Greer played a terrible game. Bad penalties, didn't tackle, and the TD/Pass Interference he gave up in the endzone to Snead would have made me lose it if I was a coach. Bad penalty, didn't cover and then basically walked off with no emotion. He didn't bring it tonight.Cooper Rush had a decent game. Had a few bad reads, with one costly INT, but he didn't do anything to lose this game. Still learning some, would like to see him get some more air on the ball if he is going to lob it up for a WR like Titus Davis, but he made strong throws in bad weather. Also showed some nice wheels and made some plays with his feet. He is continuing to grow and is starting to grasp the offense.Titus Davis was a man. Future NFL player who made some tough catches and just got open. Going to be interesting to see what he does at the end of the season in regards to the NFL Draft.Liked what I saw out of S Tony Annese today. Think he warranted some more playing time. He was aggressive in the box, played with some emotion and made some hits. Don't think I could pick a defensive lineman of the game for CMU. They played that poorly. No penetration. Didn't keep the blockers off the LB's. Very little pressure. And they allowed 250 yards rushing to a team that has been average running the ball. For the first time in a long time, penalties were an issue. Bad personal foul on Ahmeti. And the sideline infraction was completely unacceptable. That was the most helpless I've seen a CMU defense look against a MAC team in a looooooong time. Probably have to go back to the 2008 game at Eastern Michigan when they threw the ball 80 times for over 500 yards. And they just looked out of it from the start. No emotion. No fire. And you could just tell CMU was in for a long game after that first BSU drive. Have to think you are going to see some changes with the defensive staff after the season. All in all though, it was encouraging to still see the players fight. They could have easily rolled over and got blown out by 50 tonight. They kept fighting and played until the end.
This post was edited on 11/6 11:36 PM by Tyler Parsons
I said in my 5 Keys that the game would be won in the trenches. Ball State dominated on both sides. Plain and simple. They were able to run all over CMU and they loaded the box with 8 & 9 guys on defense all day and essentially dared CMU to throw it down the field on them. Speaking of the 5 Keys...CMU accomplished none of them. Turnovers were huge, they took any steam CMU had of turning this into a shootout. Can't have a -3 in the TO margin of you want to win football games.Credit Ball State on offense. They used a lot of hard counts to bait CMU into showing their defensive look/blitz scheme. Then Wenning would audible out of it or change his reads. CMU wants to be aggressive on defense, but you can tell the players aren't comfortable with the blitzes and don't look comfortable yet. Textbook offense against the 4-2-5 though. Don't like calling out individual players, but when effort is involved I think it's warranted. Brandon Greer played a terrible game. Bad penalties, didn't tackle, and the TD/Pass Interference he gave up in the endzone to Snead would have made me lose it if I was a coach. Bad penalty, didn't cover and then basically walked off with no emotion. He didn't bring it tonight.Cooper Rush had a decent game. Had a few bad reads, with one costly INT, but he didn't do anything to lose this game. Still learning some, would like to see him get some more air on the ball if he is going to lob it up for a WR like Titus Davis, but he made strong throws in bad weather. Also showed some nice wheels and made some plays with his feet. He is continuing to grow and is starting to grasp the offense.Titus Davis was a man. Future NFL player who made some tough catches and just got open. Going to be interesting to see what he does at the end of the season in regards to the NFL Draft.Liked what I saw out of S Tony Annese today. Think he warranted some more playing time. He was aggressive in the box, played with some emotion and made some hits. Don't think I could pick a defensive lineman of the game for CMU. They played that poorly. No penetration. Didn't keep the blockers off the LB's. Very little pressure. And they allowed 250 yards rushing to a team that has been average running the ball. For the first time in a long time, penalties were an issue. Bad personal foul on Ahmeti. And the sideline infraction was completely unacceptable. That was the most helpless I've seen a CMU defense look against a MAC team in a looooooong time. Probably have to go back to the 2008 game at Eastern Michigan when they threw the ball 80 times for over 500 yards. And they just looked out of it from the start. No emotion. No fire. And you could just tell CMU was in for a long game after that first BSU drive. Have to think you are going to see some changes with the defensive staff after the season. All in all though, it was encouraging to still see the players fight. They could have easily rolled over and got blown out by 50 tonight. They kept fighting and played until the end.
This post was edited on 11/6 11:36 PM by Tyler Parsons
