Ball State Eager for 'Great Opportunity' at Kentucky

For the second straight season, Ball State is opening the year by traveling to an SEC stadium. Last fall they fell 59-10 to Tennessee. Despite the lopsided loss a year ago, Cardinals head coach Mike Neu says his team is excited for the challenge they’ll face Saturday at Kroger Field.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to play against a team from the SEC that’s been so consistent week in, week out, every single year. To look out and see what Mark Stoops has done. It’s seven straight years now where they’ve been to a bowl game, so I really look at him with the utmost respect because of what he’s built Kentucky into,” said the Ball State head coach.

“It’s a great opportunity for our guys and we know that it’s all about execution for us. We gotta play high-level football, execute at a high level, make sure that we win the turnover battle and not beat ourselves that way.”

Mike Neu is entering year eight as the head coach at his alma mater. During his tenure the Cardinals are 0-8 against Power Five foes. Ball State has only played Kentucky once, falling 28-20 against Guy Morris’ Wildcats in 2001.

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Ball State preparing for “One of the Top Defensive Teams in the Country”

If you couldn’t tell by his opening statement, Mike Neu has great respect for the Kentucky football program. Ball State is well aware of the challenge Kentucky’s defense will present in the season-opener.

“You look at them from a defensive standpoint, if they weren’t the number one defense in the SEC, they were number two, one of the top defensive teams in the country for sure. They return a lot of guys on that defense,” said Neu.

“Obviously they gotta replace both corners, but this is a very good defensive football team that got some All-Conference players, some freshman All-Americans from a year ago, so it’s going to be a great challenge that way for our guys. When you can hold the national champions a year ago in Georgia to 16 points, that speaks a lot about your guys on defense to hold opponents to 20 points or less per game. It’s gonna be a great challenge.”

Extensive Film Study

Scouting the Kentucky offense will not be so simple. The Ball State coaching staff has looked at what Liam Coen did back in 2021, how Kentucky played MAC teams a year ago and taken a closer look at the transfer portal players that will make an impact for the Cats this fall.

“They did a great job in the transfer portal adding some key pieces. Certainly we’re familiar with a couple of the players from Northern Illinois, having played against them and prepared against them in the conference,” Neu said, referring to Marques Cox and Daveren Rayner.

“I think they’ve done as good of a job as anybody of utilizing the transfer portal to add some key pieces to their program. I just look at the body of work Mark Stoops has put in since his arrival at Kentucky and they are a team that’s very consistent. Every single year they’re going to play well in all three phases. And they’re hungry to get back to that 10-win, where they were at a couple years ago. Certainly I know they feel strongly about the personnel on their football team and what they’ve done so far this offseason so far in training camp.

“We’ve watched Kentucky tirelessly and it’s going to be challenging. They’ve played against two MAC teams a year ago that we’re very familiar with so you draw on every game that you can to try to find yourself a way to get an edge through the gameplan piece of it.”