Cardinal Roundtable: Akron

(We've got a new thing going on here at The Sixth Ball Brother. Actually, it's not new, but I'm now joining in on the fun. It's the Cardinal Roundtable, where the three Ball State bloggers will discuss this week's game. I'm not fully sure how this works, but I think the gist of it is, one blogger will ask the questions and then we answer them on our site. The other two Ball State blogs participating
are Ball U Nation and Over The Pylon. Their answers are linked at the end of this.)

1. If you could pick one player from another team in the MAC, who would it be and why?

TSBB: It would definitely be a defender and his name is Barry Church from Toledo. He's a hard-hitting safety who's on the Jim Thorpe watch list, not to mention he's already a two-time All-MAC performer. He was destined to be a star from day one.

If not him, I'd take Dan LeFevour so he could be on the bench and not playing for Central Michigan.

2. What in your opinion is some of the challenges that you face as a blogger for a non-BCS school?

Basically, getting anyone to care. Blogs in general are a niche, let alone one for a middling mid-major like Ball State. But the numbers have increased quite a bit, so as long as people are reading, that's all I really want. I was doing this before the both of you were, and I'll be honest, I don't know if there's a market for three Ball State athletics-related sports blogs, but we'll have fun trying to figure that out, haha.

3. What made you decide to go to Ball State for college?

I'm going to make a mistake here and be honest. It was because I didn't get into Indiana. I don't know what happened there, but I had a 3.0 GPA, 1100 on my SAT, academic all-state for football and somehow didn't get accepted to IU. I can only surmise that I filled out my application incorrectly or I caught the wrong admissions person on the wrong day.

Ball State was the only other school I looked at, plus I had a lot of friends coming here, so I decided to come here. I'm pretty sure I did the whole college recruitment thing all wrong, but I have no regrets. I love this school. I got both my bachelor's and master's from here and get upset at people when even alumni make fun of our school. Sure, it can sometime be frustrating to care about the well being of a MAC team, but someone has to do it.

4. Jason Whitlock has been hyping us as a BCS gate crashing contender and other writers have begun to jump on the bandwagon. What upcoming game worries you the most in terms of Ball State losing?

How about all of them? Akron feels like a trap game, but I think the Cardinals will pull it out. In the history of the Brady Hoke-era, we've never been able to stop a running quarterback. We're going to need that to change if we're going to beat IU and Central Michigan. Lewis has bitch-slapped us around two straight years and LeFevour last year. Let's keep our fingers crossed. WMU worries me as well.

5. What are your impressions so far of the defense? Is it better, worse, or about the same from last year?

It couldn't get any worse than it's been, so it's certainly better. Unfortunately, I was way too happy with us only holding Navy to 348 yards. If we intend on doing great things, it starts with the defense playing much better. Fingers are crossed. Most of the players have been starting for three years, so anything less than the best is unacceptable.

Over The Pylon
Ball U Nation