'No discipline' leads to miserable Ball State football loss to Eastern Michigan | Analysis
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Ball State football’s seniors played their final game at Scheumann Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 15. They left the field disappointed after taking their first home loss of the season.
The Cardinals fell to Eastern Michigan, 24-9, in a game that never really felt close. Ball State (4-6, 3-3 MAC) continued to struggle offensively, and while the defense did come up with some big turnovers, it also gave up too many explosive plays, including two touchdowns of 30-plus yards.
“First time all year it felt like we didn’t play Ball State football. Really feel bad for the seniors; those guys deserve a lot better than the performance we put out there,” Ball State coach Mike Uremovich said. “No discipline on either side of the ball shows you we’re not near as far as anyone wants to think that we are, and that’s reality.
“Whatever’s on that film is what you are as a player and what you are as a coach. Today was a disappointing performance in every aspect of the program, starting with me as the head coach.”
Uremovich bemoaned the team’s lack of discipline throughout the postgame press conference. The clearest example came late in the third quarter with Ball State trailing by 11. After taking a timeout, the Cardinals got a 19-yard run from TJ Horton on a jet sweep that would have set them up inside the 5-yard line, but an illegal formation penalty for too many men in the backfield forced them to replay the down from first-and-15.
Ball State couldn’t muster up those 15 yards and faced fourth-and-2 on the first play of the fourth quarter. Rather than settle for a field goal that would have made it a one-score game, Uremovich opted to go for it, and quarterback Kiael Kelly was sacked for a loss to end the drive.
“I thought that, at that point, we could get the fourth-and-2. Had it been fourth-and-8 or something like that, we would’ve kicked it,” Uremovich said. “They were in man, the coverage we thought they were going to be in. We practiced the play but just didn’t get it executed properly.”
That wasn’t the Cardinals’ only questionable field goal decision. Earlier in the third quarter, Ball State had a drive down to the Eagles’ 8-yard line but faced a fourth-and-4. The Cardinals trailed by 14 but settled for a 25-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 11 — keeping a two-score game a two-score game.
The lack of discipline also manifested itself in the form of two unsportsmanlike conduct fouls. One went against tight end Drew Cassens and offset an unsportsmanlike conduct committed first by Eastern Michigan. The other went against receiver Eric Weatherly during the Cardinals’ final drive and pushed the Cardinals from third-and-manageable to third-and-long, which ultimately cost them a chance to make it a one-score game late in the fourth quarter as they wound up turning it over on downs on fourth-and-long.
“We had personal fouls that were completely selfish, undisciplined football, which we won’t play here, and those cost us drives,” Uremovich said. “When you’re not very good on offense, you can’t shoot yourself, and we did that multiple times today.”
“Not very good” might be underselling just how bad the Ball State offense was. The running game struggled with starting runningback Qua Ashley out with an injury, although they did get some nice gains off of jet sweeps to Horton and Weatherly. The passing offense, meanwhile, was almost nonexistent — Kelly completed 13 of 22 passes for 62 yards, an average of just 4.8 yards per completion, and one interception.
On the other side, Eastern Michigan’s offense was efficient, effectice and explosive. Quarterback Noah Kim picked apart the Cardinal defense to finish 18-for-29 for 229 yards — a whopping 12.7 yards per completion average — and a touchdown. While he did throw two interceptions, Ball State went three-and-out after the first one and only got a field goal out of the second. The run defense was much better for the most part but surrendered a 36-yard touchdown rush to Eagles running back Tavierre Dunlap in the early fourth that put the game out of reach (if it wasn’t already).
“Guys were trying to do other people’s jobs, missed fitting gaps here and there,” Ball State linebacker Joey Stemler said. “We just didn’t play very sound, and as a leader of the defense, it starts with me. I didn’t do my job to the fullest. When people start messing up here and there, it kind of spirals, so we just didn’t play the Ball State way. We need to be real with ourselves in film and fix it.”
Stemler, a fifth-year senior who has spent his entire college career at Ball State, was one of 22 seniors honored pregame for Senior Day. While his final game at Scheumann Stadium wasn’t what he envisioned, he was appreciative when reflecting on his time playing in Muncie.
“It’s hard, obviously, you don’t think the time’s going to fly by, and it’s going to be here before you know it,” Stemler said. “I’m just very appreciative of my time here, appreciative of Coach U for all he’s done for us, keeping our heads on straight, and I know that everything he just said is true. We never question anything — we’re always going to follow Coach U to the end of the road.”
Winning each of the last three games would have landed Ball State in Detroit for the MAC Championship in December, but the loss to Eastern Michigan effectively ended those hopes. The Cardinals must now win out to attain bowl eligibility, and they’ll have to do it on the road against Toledo and Miami (Ohio), two teams still firmly in the conference title hunt.
“I want to see how we’re going to respond,” Uremovich said. “Sometimes it takes something like this. Let everybody see it tomorrow, we’ll all watch it as a team. Everyone’s going to have to be held accountable, starting with me for the plays I called down to the way that we perform on the field.
“The film does not lie.”
Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@muncie.gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Analyzing Ball State football’s home loss to Eastern Michigan
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