Monday marked the annual Mid-American Conference Head Football Coaches Teleconference, hosted by the MAC. Every head coach in the MAC was given a set time to answer any questions. Coach Pete Lembo covered a variety of topics during his teleconference.
He first gave his opinion on opening the season this Saturday, along with playing the first Football Bowl Subdivision game at Lucas Oil Stadium.
"Like every team in America we're excited now to transition from preseason mode to game week mode," Lembo said. "Our guys are getting a little tired of going up against each other and anxious to start game week preparations and line up against a different color jersey this week."
Lembo also acknowledged that both himself and Indiana coach Kevin Wilson have brought new coaching staffs to their respective teams.
"Obviously we've got two new coaching staffs so there's a lot of unknowns going into this game, both in terms of personnel and schemes," he said. "I'm really hoping this game is a great opportunity for college football and the state of Indiana."
Lembo was asked about the challenges he has faced since he arrived at Ball State, and said the challenges were similar to the ones he faced while he was at Elon. Like Ball State, he was the third head coach at Elon in a short amount of time when he joined. But Lembo said there were some tougher challenges.
"We had to develop trust and get everybody on the same page and let these guys know we're here for them," he said. "We wanted to make it clear from day one that we were gonna make these guys our guys. We wanted to embrace everybody that was here. The seniors in particular have been great because they have been open and honest."
Lembo also said his coaching staff has been stressing the importance of academics to his players and has made changes to how the team went about with its academic progress.
"Some of the things we've attacked since we've got here is academics and academic support," Lembo said. "We've reorganized the summer school program so we can bring in our freshmen so they can get a head start on their academics. Strength and conditioning was another area of stress. We reorganized that program to get our team to become bigger, faster and stronger."
Two of the final topics he discussed were personnel issues and who he would expect to be playing in the season-opener against Indiana. He said senior safety Sean Baker will play even though he will be wearing a cast on his hand from a fracture he suffered.
"Kyle Hoke and Josh Howard have been sharing time and we feel good about both those seniors there," Lembo said. "They have experience and are different players. [Hoke] has a feel for the game. [Howard] is one of our better athletes. I anticipate all three of them to play Saturday."
As for the running back situation, David Brown and Cory Sykes have been listed as doubtful and questionable, respectively. Lembo said he expects sophomore running back Barrington Scott to make his first start Saturday.
"Barrington Scott has had a great preseason for us, I feel very good about him," Lembo said. "[Dwayne] Donigan has been very productive for us and freshman Jahwan Edwards has really stepped up and had a really nice preseason for us. I'm hoping either Brown or Sykes will be ready to play Saturday."
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