First Place!

I have three regular season games left in my Ball State managerial career, and it's awful hard to be in a better position than I am now. We played undoubtedly the biggest regular season game I've ever been a part of last night, and we actually freaking won. The team is now 13-13 (my best season as a manager by four wins), and 7-6 in the conference. Now, of course, that's ridiculously unimpressive. However, it's good enough for first place in our division. Not only that, last night's game gave us a one game lead on the division, and a virtual two game lead on second place!

The MAC has been absolutely god awful this season, and especially the MAC West, the division in which we participate. It should be telling that we're the only divisional team with more than nine wins, and we were one of the most impressive West teams in the cross-division match-ups--going 2-4 against the East. But you know what, I don't really care that much. This is the most competitive we've been in my four years, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Ball State also boasts the odds-on favorite for conference freshman player of the year in Jarrod Jones, who is likely to finish one of the most impressive freshman campaigns for a post player since the late 90s. He's among the top five in freshman scoring and top three in freshman rebounding in the Ball State record books, considering Ball State's basketball history, that's some select company. All signs point to him NOT transferring, something that previous freshman stars (our previous starting point Melvin Goins and Marquette's Maurice Acker) can't claim. So the best is clearly still to come.

It's also impressive considering that we lost our best player Anthony Newell, who was probably a favorite for conference player of the year, in the first conference game at Eastern Michigan. He was the leading scorer and rebounder, and among the tops in the league the past two seasons. His career ended just five points short of 1,000. Even with that, we're still in control of our destiny for a division title...

Uh-oh, Ball State Is Beastin'

Just four short years ago, I remember taking a trip to the beautiful city of Kalamazoo in Michigan to see the mighty Cardinals of Ball State take on the Broncos of Western Michigan. Why is this significant? Ball State entered that game winless, and were ranked as the worst division 1A football team in the country by ESPN. We had losses like 56-0 at Iowa (42-0 at the half), 38-0 at Boston College, and the colossal 63-3 loss at Auburn. I mean, we were awful.

So why was that trip important? I still haven't answered your question, I know. Anyway, Ball State, the WORST team in the country, took a relatively decent Western team to five overtimes and won 60-57. Ball State would wrap up their season at 4-7 after losing in OT to Central Michigan on the last game of the season. The Cards won three of their last four games.

Over the following offseason, BSU picked up a major commitment from a QB in Ohio by the name of Nate Davis. Davis had offers from a bunch of MAC schools, but chose BSU as his final destination. The hype around him was pretty big by Ball State standards. He lived up to it on the first game of the season, where he tossed three TD passes. That's not to say there weren't bumps along the road, while splitting time with veteran Joey Lynch BSU blew a 23-7 halftime lead over IU to lose 24-23. However, at the game, there were an astounding number of student fans and a stadium record 23,000+ person crowd. Ball State finished 5-7 (puntuated by a near defeat of #2 Michigan at the Big House), but everyone in the MAC knew something was brewing.

So cut to last season, Ball State's offense hit the big stage. We were expected to win all season, and even though some may have been a little underwhelmed from a few games (we lost to Miami of Ohio 14-13 in the home opener), Ball State was for real. The biggest thrill came on a trip to Nebraska, where Dante Love was one dropped passd from etching the biggest victory in school history. The aforementioned Davis introduced himself to the natonal stage by posting 422 yards on the once-vaunted Nebraska defense. However, in that game we lost our only real rushing threat in MiQuale Lewis. BSU became relatively one dimensional and finished the season 7-6 after a loss to Ray Rice and Rutgers in the International Bowl, the first BSU bowl game since 1996.

So now, Ball State is 5-0 this season, the first time in 20 years, and just outside of the Top 25 rankings. We're regularly posting 40+ points on every team. Two weeks ago, BSU went down to IU and posted their first-ever win over a BCS conference opponent (0-43, prior to that game). And by win, I mean slaughter. We went into Memorial Stadium and won 42-20. The win was bittersweet in that BSU lost someone who's been as important to this run as anyone, senior receiver/kick returner/occasional running back Dante Love, whose football career appears to have ended just short of the NFL.

My point is, this could possibly be the biggest highlight of my sports fan career. I remember just a couple years ago when the BSU student section (all 18 of us) would walk up and down the field with the team because we could. I remember the biggest cheers coming for the punter, who was usually the best player on the team. Now? Well, now we gotta show up to games an hour and a half early just to get a good seat in the section. We had 10,000 plus students in the section for the Navy game... Ball State has an enrollment around 18,000. People leave tailgating lots for games. Hell, I even see a lot of people traveling to road games to watch the team now. It's insane really.

BUT, we'll see what happens before I get too excited...

Go Cards.