Rarely do football fans get a chance to see the importance of special teams as much as they did during Ball State's season opener against Miami University.
Trailing 13-7, Miami's Eugene Harris returned a Chris Miller punt 56 yards, giving the ball back to the RedHawks on the Cardinals' 23 yardline with 1:54 to play. The return set up Miami's final touchdown drive, which gave the RedHawks' 14-13 road victory.
"The kicking game really hurt us," head coach Brady Hoke said. "In the first two weeks of the season, there's a lot of games where the kicking game decides it. You give up a punt returns like that and the kicking game was most certainly a factor tonight."
Miami's final drive took six plays and ended with a six-yard Brandon Murphy touchdown run. The drive took 1:31, and Ball State didn't get the ball back until 17.7 seconds remained on the game clock.
The Cardinals were able to get off two plays before time ran out, both resulting in incomplete passes.
Miami coach Shane Montgomery said he couldn't have scripted a better game-winning drive.
"You draw it up that way," Montgomery said. "It helped to get that huge punt return to give us a chance. We knew we were going to have a timeout, and instead of trying to force the ball we decided to run."
With 11:56 remaining in the fourth quarter, Ball State scored its only touchdown of the game, a 23-yard pass from Nate Davis to Dante Love. However, Hoke declined to attempt the two-point conversion, giving Ball State a six-point lead.
"I thought there was a enough time left with 11 minutes left in the game that we didn't need to go for two at that point," Hoke said.
Ball State also had a chance to get three points at the end of the first half. The Cardinals were on Miami's seven yard line as time was running out, but Hoke decided to go for a touchdown on fourth and five instead of attempt a field goal. The fourth-down play resulted in an incomplete pass.
"I just said in the locker room, 'Man, I should've kicked the field goal," Hoke said. "It's easy to say that now. But we were confident, and we thought we had a good play. It just didn't work."
In Davis' first game of his sophomore season, the quarterback completed 19-of-36 passes for 198 yards and had a touchdown. His favorite targets were receiver Dante Love and tight end Darius Hill. Love caught eight passes for 80 yards and touchdown. Hill added four receptions for 79 yards.
However, the third-leading receiver was running back MiQuale Lewis, four receptions, 27 yards, and no receiver recorded more than a single reception.
"We don't need just a third option; we need everybody," Davis said.
The home loss came before three consecutive road games. Two of Ball those opponents are Nebraska and Navy. However, Hoke said he wasn't focused on that.
"Our players are confident and they hurt right now," Hoke said. "And they better hurt because if you don't hurt when you lose you shouldn't play. But we'll bounce back. There's still a lot of season left to play."
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