Game Preview: Penn State set for Ball State matchup; raucous crowd expected
Ball State’s home field, Scheumann Stadium, is located just behind a row of ranch homes on a pleasant, tree-lined street in a quiet-looking section of Muncie, Ind.
Cardinals football coach Mike Neu is trying to be a good neighbor this week, but he’s also got to get his team prepped for what is likely to be an explosively raucous environment at Penn State on Saturday. So the residents of North Richmond Drive might have to put up with some noise.
Ball State’s first-ever visit to State College will be the Nittany Lions’ 2021 home opener and the first game at Beaver Stadium with an actual crowd since Nov. 30, 2019, when PSU defeated Rutgers, 27-6, before 98,895 fans.
It’s going to be intense, and Neu has been using every loudspeaker at his disposal to prepare his players for what they’re likely to experience this coming weekend.
“Hopefully we don’t upset our neighbors who back up to the stadium,” Neu said. “We just try to play the music as loud as we possibly can while also pumping in crowd noise as much as we can. We really just want to make it as obnoxious as possible – to where you can’t hear and just have to focus on silent communication.
“You have to be really good with it, and if you’re one of the players who is lined up out wide, whether it’s on offense or defense, and you can’t hear, you’ve got to make sure you’re watching the ball. Because in every tape that you watch when there was a crowd there at Beaver Stadium, certainly the opponent had some pre-snap penalties. That’s one thing that we want to make sure we take care of on our end.”
Ball State, the defending Mid-American Conference champion, opened its season on Sept. 2 with a 31-21 victory over visiting Western Illinois in front of 13,149 fans. Playing before a crowd of any size was a heady experience after last year, when the Cardinals listed a total attendance of 2,865 for their three home games. As Neu said after the victory over the Leathernecks, “There’s nothing better than playing when you have people and there’s energy and there’s buzz like tonight.”
It’s tempting to suggest that the buzz they will experience this weekend will be unlike anything the Ball State program has ever seen; it will, after all, be the team’s first appearance in a stadium that seats in excess of 100,000 fans.
But the Cardinals played at Notre Dame three years ago, and they clearly didn’t find the environment overwhelming. With 77,622 fans on hand, Ball State trailed the eighth-ranked Fighting Irish by only six points at halftime, and while they weren’t able to pull off an upset, falling 24-16, they were able to control the ball for parts of the game and actually finished with more first downs (24) than the heavily favored home team (20).
This year, Ball State is fielding one of the more veteran teams in the country, with 16 super seniors and 20 returning starters on its roster. So there are plenty of key players still on hand who were a part of that visit to South Bend in 2018.“
That was a program that has a storied past and a tremendous history, so it’s very similar” to Penn State, Neu said. “Obviously, this will be the first time we’ve played in a stadium that seats 100,000-plus. So we’ve just got to make sure we don’t give them a bunch of reasons to be really loud.“
The one thing we can do is to do a really good job of executing and playing good football. Those are things we’ve tried to prepare for here, starting with our week of preparation on Monday and Tuesday and continuing, trying to make it as loud as possible and doing a good job of concentrating and giving our guys the best chance to go there and line up and have success.”
Ball State will have to find a way to neutralize Penn State’s most dynamic playmakers, notably senior receiver Jahan Dotson, who got the Nittany Lions’ offense unstuck at Wisconsin last Saturday with a 49-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter.
The Cardinals had some trouble with Western Illinois wideout Dennis Houston, who singlehandedly accounted for 237 of the Leathernecks’ 367 yards through the air and two of their three touchdowns.
Neu said he’s looking for better tackling this week and has emphasized the need to tackle well in the open field.
“When we’re in space and it’s a one-on-one tackling situation, we’ve got to get him down, we’ve got to get him on the ground,” the sixth-year coach said. “So we’ve got to have people running to the football, doing a great job in pursuit.”
Ball State will be taking an eight-game winning streak into its matchup against Penn State, and that includes two wins over ranked opponents. Given the program’s recent history, Neu said he doesn’t expect his players to be fazed by the environment, no matter how noisy it gets.
“Penn State is a tremendous program with a tremendous history,” he said. “They’ve got a talented roster, but our guys will be ready for that challenge.”
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