Maybe we were wrong.
Maybe Ball State University students shouldn't support its football team. Its coach doesn't seem to have an overwhelming swagger by any means.
Stan Parrish thinks it would be best to avoid playing teams in tougher conferences twice in a row, despite bringing in enormous payments.
If you don't want to schedule two tough teams in a row because of the physical toll it takes on the players, you might as well only play every two or three weeks. They aren't getting massages; they are running into each other as fast and hard as they can. It's a contact sport. It's not supposed to be easy. Ball State is traditionally a struggling team in the toughest division.
What's worse, you knew about the schedule when the contract was signed in March. You could've backed out or raised concerns then. Instead you're wasting time trying to find a way out of the beatdown you assume you're going to get? Even if you do lose, dropping two games in a row to BCS teams won't be the low point of your legacy - the universities of North Texas and New Hampshire may have that honor.
It's hard to expect students and the greater Ball State community to support your team and give it their confidence if its head coach can't. It's not a shining beacon of self-confidence either. You're trying to duck two BCS teams in Purdue University and the University of Iowa - not the worst, granted, but they're no Tulsa University (sorry, cheap shot) - because you've already conceded defeat. Just because it took Ball State 44 games to win against a BCS school doesn't mean it'll be a few years before the next one.
Part of your job is to give your team confidence. Yet you're trying to hold their hands across the street.
If you don't want your players to get hurt, tell them to lay down for a quarter or two. Once the score is out of hand, Purdue and Iowa will put in their second strings and be more on the level you think your first string is. At least that way Ball State still gets paid.
Not trying is worse than failing.
And not to sound shallow, but do it for the money. The checks Ball State cashes from these types of games can go a long way to support the universities intercollegiate athletics.
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