Cardinals Savoring High-Stakes, Late-Season Game with Central Michigan

Game 9
Ball State (4-5, 3-2 MAC) vs. Central Michigan (6-4, 4-2 MAC)
Date: Saturday, Nov. 16
Kickoff: 3:32 p.m.
Location: Muncie, Ind. (Scheumann Stadium)
Watch: CBS Sports Network | Listen: WLBC 104.1 FM | Live Stats
Social: @BallStateFB, @BallStateSports, #ChirpChirp, #WeFly, #OTM
Game Notes: Ball State | Central Michigan
Game Day Information: Tickets | Game Day Guide | Program

It's a position this Ball State football team is relishing. To be playing consequential games in the Mid-American Conference race in the month of November.

Really, it's been about six years. Six years since the 2013 team played a brutally cold midweek game at Northern Illinois basically with the West Division title on the line.

This year's Ball State team is back in the division hunt again. Despite losses in the past two games, the Cardinals still have pretty much everything in front of them. A shot at the division. A chance at bowl eligibility.

And a lot is riding on Saturday's game against Central Michigan.

"There's a lot at stake, and that's a position you want to be in," Ball State head coach Mike Neu said. "You want to be in a game that has a lot on the line because that means you've worked hard, you've put yourself in position. But we have to play a four-quarter game."

A slow start cost the Cardinals last week at Western Michigan in a game that would have really put them in the driver's seat in the division. They came back to take the lead but could not hold off the Broncos in the final minutes.

Neu has been preaching the importance playing the first half the way his team played the second in Kalamazoo and about getting back to stopping the run the way the Cardinals had been before the recent setbacks to Ohio and WMU.

"Our guys know what is at stake," Neu said. "They know that playing your best football at the end of the season is what matters most … Those tight games, that's where we have to capitalize. When we have an opportunity in those games in the fourth quarter, we have to find a way to be able to get it done."

19981 — **The Cardinals are looking to get back in the win column against Central Michigan.**

The Cardinals will look to get it done against a Central Michigan team that has won four of its past five and is coming off a 48-10 throttling of Northern Illinois. Both teams have two league losses. So does Western Michigan. So does Toledo. No one in the division has fewer.

So Ball State controls its destiny in terms of winning at least a share of the division title. And a 3-0 finish and a little help could send the Cardinals to Detroit for the MAC Championship game, specifically a Western Michigan loss in its finale at NIU.

But first things first. Ball State can't win out without winning this first one against Central Michigan. The Chippewas have been off since that Nov. 2 victory over NIU, while the Cardinals have been off since Nov. 5.

Ball State won last year's meeting on a Morgan Hagee field goal in the final minute in Mount Pleasant. The Chippewas have made strides since then, rebounding from a 1-11 season and entering Saturday's game at 6-4 under first-year head coach Jim McElwain.

The Chippewas rank just behind Ball State at third in the MAC in scoring at 30 points per game. Defensively, they have intercepted 11 passes, second-most in the league also to BSU.

"They're good in all phases," Neu said. "They present a lot of problems. They have a lot of confidence coming in here."

Cardinals Savoring High-Stakes, Late-Season Game with Central Michigan

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Players Mentioned

Morgan Hagee