TAMPA – Three members of the Ball State football team were brought to a back hallway in Raymond James Stadium on Saturday night to meet with a small contingent of reporters. They came one at a time, answered questions for a few minutes each and left. All managed to work some form of the word humbled into their remarks. As in, it was humbling to lose to No. 20 South Florida 37-7 one week after starting the season by upsetting Indiana.
South Florida dominated Ball State on Saturday night in every aspect of the game from the opening kickoff, when it forced a fumble and returned the loose ball for a touchdown. Any illusions of a second consecutive win for the Cardinals against a team from a BCS conference were gone by halftime when the Bulls took a 30-point lead into the locker room.
Monday, on the Mid-American Conference weekly conference call, coach Pete Lembo used that word "humbling" again.
"Some individual guys did some positive things over the course of the game, but other than that it was a fairly humbling trip for us," Lembo said.
Ball State is now back in Muncie attempting to put the loss behind it and focus on its home opener and first MAC game of the season against Buffalo on Saturday at 7 p.m. Cornerback Jason Pinkston acknowledged it wouldn't be easy to put South Florida in the past, but knows Ball State must do so quickly if it wants to start its conference season with a victory.
"It's never easy," he said. "We've just got to watch the film, get it corrected and get ready for Buffalo."
There will be plenty to fix this week in practice. After largely doing whatever it wanted offensively against Indiana, Ball State was shut down by South Florida. The Cardinals gained 225 total yards Saturday, just 15 more than their rushing total on Opening Night. After not turning the ball over at all against Indiana, Ball State fumbled three times and quarterback Keith Wenning felt significant pressure in the pocket.
On the other side of the ball, quarterback B.J. Daniels picked apart Ball State's defense. He completed 28 of 39 passes for 359 yards, scrambling deftly to create more time for a play to develop. The Cardinals will face another mobile quarterback when Chazz Anderson leads the Bulls into Scheumann Stadium.
"He's a very athletic quarterback, with a quick release," Lembo said. "And I think he's got some talented position players around him."
The start of MAC play gives the Cardinals an easy way to get refocused after what could otherwise be a debilitating loss.
But Wenning said while it's impossible to forget a game like South Florida, it is also necessary to look ahead.
"Everything sticks with you," Wenning said. "It's a matter of moving on and focusing on the next opponent."
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