Is it over? Is it safe to come out?
Ball State just had one of the more disappointing weekends that I can remember.
The men's basketball team couldn't compete against a Butler team that isn't nearly as good as its ranking may indicate. Butler's game against Louisville indicated that.
The football team ended a 2010 season that may have had four wins, but the Cardinals looked hopeless against several of their Mid-American Conference peers.
And, probably the worst of all, the women's volleyball team gets everyone's hopes up as the class of the conference before choking it all away in three straight sets Friday.
I'm losing count of the number of times I've picked Ball State to win something only to be proven terribly wrong by a lackluster performance.
That streak of failure goes across the board: baseball, men's basketball, football, women's volleyball, soccer and on and on. Each team has managed to fall just before it would break through with a major achievement. And that just covers the past few years.
I'm tired to being the laughingstock, of being the afterthought. I'm not expecting miracles, but stop making me feel embarrassed.
I guess I'm just supposed to brush off what I saw in Hinkle Fieldhouse on Saturday. I wasn't expecting the Cardinals to win, but I thought they would keep it close.
I guess I should live with Ball State giving up offensive rebound after offensive rebound, allowing 17 second-chance points and 40 points in the paint.
Ball State's offense fell apart from a little defensive pressure by Butler. The Cardinals started throwing up bad shots with plenty of time on the shot clock because they couldn't get anything else.
I don't know what happened to the women's volleyball team Friday. The Cardinals showed up with no spirit.
Maybe they believed they wouldn't have to work hard to win the MAC Tournament.
We may never know who the team was listening to. The players didn't speak after the game.
Ball State volleyball will learn from this. It's hard to say if the team will get the same opportunity next year, though.
Alyssa Rio was one of the best liberos in the nation. No matter how well Steve Shondell recruits, finding another Rio won't be easy.
Then there's the football team.
By the time you're reading this, Parrish might be out the door. The rumor mill has been swirling since the season ended Saturday.
Parrish, or whoever is the next coach, isn't going to turn this team into the reincarnated version of 2008. All I want is some hope that the football team could compete for the MAC title, a modest demand.
And no more 38-point blowouts. No more games that are over by halftime. No more weekends where a half-empty Scheumann Stadium would be an improvement.
I don't know what I think about Parrish's future.
Certainly everyone is disappointed that the football team couldn't maintain some of the momentum of a 12-0 regular season. It's quite the shock to go from the top 15 to the bottom in a year.
I don't know what to ask athletics director Tom Collins for regarding Parrish. Parrish won six games in his first two seasons — the same number as Brady Hoke.
There are clearly differences between Hoke and Parrish. Hoke was an up-and-coming coach at his alma mater and Parrish is trying to stave off forced retirement, if just for a little bit longer. Parrish also had a much better talent pool to work with.
I'm concerned about the turmoil a coaching search would put on the team.
Do we even trust the administration to conduct a search to find the next coach anyway? They're the ones who let Hoke go to San Diego State in the first place.
All things considered, I just want the Cardinals to be respectable.
Across three sports, they were nowhere near that this weekend.
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