Ball State Cardinals


Official Ball State Football Site

September 11, 1999

Here are my game grades for the Ball State game.

QB: B-
Scott Kavanagh was pretty decent after a shaky start. He moved well in the pocket and made solid reads. A few of his throws were a bit misguided, but none were any real threat to be intercepted.

Of his 8 short balls, only one was poorly thrown (underthrown to Davis in the flat) while 3 others were fair throws and 4 were nice tosses. On the medium and deep balls, he had 4 of 8 good throws with only two clunkers. In particular, he threw nice slants to Evans (for the TD) and to Davis for a big play. His one major gaff was of course missing a wide open Nick Davis on an out and up in the second quarter. He also made a nice throw under pressure to Kuhns for the short TD.

Bollinger once again displayed his athletic talents, but peppered them with costly mistakes. He had two nice scrambles out of the pocket, but also held the ball too long and couldn't find his secondary receivers with any regularity.

Of his throws, all were short and all were relatively ok.

Brooks also made one terrible pitch for a fumble, costing the team at least a possible FG.

RB: A
Dayne was again superior. He consistently ran VERY hard and moved the pile. He also hit the holes pretty quickly and was able to make some nice subtle cuts to slip though closing holes. Once again, he didn't really break anything deep, but was a constant threat for 6-8 yards with any kind of blocking.

Chad Kuhns was also terrific, consistently taking out the LB from Dayne's path. He is very very good at finding his "target" (something that Daniels is struggling with at his new position). Michael Bennett showed his great burst as he almost broke one deep, but showed that he has the potential to be a tough interior runner with his last second TD run.

Carlos Daniels dropped another pass and didn't play a whole lot after that.

WR: B
Nothing too spectacular but solid play. Both Evans and Davis had the long slants for big gains, but much of the credit to those plays goes to Kavanagh for nice throws.

Davis also had a couple of nice runs after catches to tack on 5 to 10 yards onto each catch.

The receivers also did a nice job of locking up their men downfield on many of Dayne's runs.

Again, where was Ahmad Merritt?

Lee Evans had a drop after his TD.

David Braun made a nice catch. Good to see a walk-on get a chance to shine.

TE: B
The TEs were not receiving threats (though Anelli made a nice catch on the last drive). However, the blocking, particularly John Sigmund seemed much better. Sigmund did a better job of controlling his man and even got some nice consistent movement on the end occastionally. If he can block like this, it is really going to help in the running game on the perimeter.

OL: B
The starting OL came out firing early, blowing huge holes in the Cardinal defense. For all the talk about the few missed blocks (and there were a few), they generally controlled every facet of the lineplay. The pass blocking was solid for the most part, especially early, and pressure was only supplied late in the play.

The Badgers again seemed reluctant to run wide for whatever the reason, instead concentrating on running directly over Rabach, who responded with a nice solid game, getting good push and manhandling the nose inside.

Costa and Ferrario were the primary culprits with the bad run blocks on a Dayne stuff and Bollinger's bad pitch play, but it looked to be an execution/position issue rather than simply getting beat. Still, they need to be more consistent. Blown blocks lead to big hits and turnovers.

McIntosh was his usual quiet consistent self. The Badgers just don't want to seem to run left too much, even though they have a lot of success there when they do. Maybe saving it? Just too much a right handed team?

Both Tauscher and Ben Johnson had some trouble with pass blocking. Tauscher's troubles were more in maintaining his blocks while Johnson simply wasn't moving his feet and sealing off the rush from the corner. Again, improvement is needed.

DL: B
The line was dominating in terms of run support, consistently eliminating any forward movement and keeping the backs hemmed up in the backfield.

However, while there was solid late pressure, they were only able to put early heat on the QB twice. The DBs really helped the DL out in this regard as Conn simply didn't have anywhere to go with the ball in most cases.

Wendell Bryant had two big time pass rushes, flashing his huge talents. But, he disappears at times and needs to learn to dominate on every play.

Favret played a pretty decent game, getting some nice run penetration and providing the majority of what pass rush there was with 6 or 7 solid quick moves aroudn the outside to force the pocket to collapse or forcing the QB to step up and throw early. Still, he has not gotten to the QB yet.

Sam Mueller provided some steady play in relief with a sack and a few other solid plays.

Eric Mahlik had the big play for the safety.

Overall, a solid game, though still lacking the big plays (after the safety).

LB: B
Roger Knight was terrific, making plays all over the field. He blew up a number of plays with penetration, was good in coverage, and was sure in his open field tackling. I think the coaches need him on the field the way he is playing.

Donnell Thompson and Chris Ghidorzi were quiet, though Ghidorzi had the TD run of course and seemed to be positionally stable. Nether played all that much or were involved in too many run plays with the DL cleaning up the Ball State running attack.

DB: B
Coverage was solid all around. Echols was not picked on so much. Instead, the openings seemed to come from the nickel and dime backs.

Of teh 20 or so plays, only 3 were what I considered poor coverage while 11 were excellent. Fletcher and Echols just didn't give Conn any place to throw.

Jason Doering was strong in run support, with several blitzes into the backfield for solid stops.

Bobby Myers as also very solid in pass coverage, with the one pass breakup that led to Ghidorzi's TD. He looks to be playing much more consistently than Taylor did last year.

The only problem with the DBs seemed to Devery Hughes who just seemed lost at times, mixing up coverage on more than one occasion. He also took a bad angle to a runner on a long Ball State play and was soft in coverage when he was in the right place. I really feel he is being forced into action a bit earlier than he is ready for. He does seem to move pretty well though.

Joey Boese again missed a tackle. He needs to step up as the meat of the schedule approaches.

Special Teams: A-
Huge Davis returns. Huge Conroy Whyte return. Long FG for Vitaly along with a short one. Solid kick coverage.

On the downside, one bad Pisetsky kickoff. Missed field goal.

A few quick thoughts on the Ball State game
(You will notice that I did not post any keys to the game again this week as I simply coudn't seriously give any in-depth analysis for such a mismatch of a game...besides, I was short of time this week).