Oh my poor Ball State Cards (kinda long mostly whiny)....

The Game Room
1

After letting our perfect season slip away because of bad refs and bad hands we are going to lose Big Bad Brady Hoke, our coach, to San Diego State?

Is that even an upgrade?

No…no it’s not. This guy has taken my Cards from 2-10 to 12-0 in 4 years, improving the wins each year. He has brought in an offensive coordinator (Stan Parrish) who led Michigan to an undefeated national championship AND coached Tom Brady to the form he has today; and not only that he went to Tampa Bay and decided to coach the offense to a Super Bowl. He brought in recruits who play hard, and win games.

And now he will be gone. Because of our administrations refusal to do ANYTHING for our football program, he is going to another no-name school.

And what does our school do to ignore him?

All they do is make him the 5th lowest paid coach IN OUR CONFERENCE, steer attention towards our basketball program (yeah, we were good once like 60 years ago…) and refuse to even give him his own office.

Now he is going away, and once again my wonderful school will plunge to the depths of anonymity…

Sigh…

2

It was a good ride while it lasted. <sigh>

I’m an IU grad but a friend’s nephew is playing as a starter this year so we’ve been following the games.

3

Alas, that is the trouble with the MAC. Whenever a team there gets a good coach, he’s gone way too soon.

It’s tough to keep them in Muncie (or Mt. Pleasant or Kent or Oxford etc) once they’ve seen San Diego.

4

I mean this as no criticism of Ball State, but SDSU should be a better program. It’s not, obviously, right now - but they have better facilities, play at Qualcomm, offer their coaches more money, play in a better conference, happen to be in San Diego, and, most importantly, are one of only 3 D1A schools in all of Southern California. If they never beat out USC or UCLA for a single recruit from SoCal, and lose the next 50 prospects to PAC-10 schools, they’d still end up with a fabulous recruiting class most years from the leftovers.

Clearly, all of these advantages have been horribly squandered over the last 15 years or so since Marshall Faulk left town - but the right coach could awaken a sleeping giant at SDSU. I don’t think Ball State offers the same potential.

Most important for Hoke, I’m sure, is that he’ll be making triple the money.

5

The Mountain West is an underrated football conference. I would consider SDSU an upgrade.

Check out this Jason Whitlock article about Ball State. Here’s what he had to say about Ball State’s president, Jo Ann Gora:

Yikes

6

Did I hear that Ball State, if they had finished undefeated, could have played also undefeated Boise State in a bowl game, but they refused?

7

You’re close:
http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20081204/NEWS01/812040378

8

MOID:

Yes I am very aware of JAGs apprehension when it comes to BSUs sports. She doesn’t feel we can compete with IU and Purdue (which to an extent is true…) and would be very happy if we barely put any focus on sports at all. My freshman year we were very close to being demoted to D-II, and she was very for that…even to the point of trying to convince us students that it was a good idea. Needless to say, we disagreed.

Oh what a difference 4 years makes huh? Going from bottom of the barrel to undefeated, it has been a great show to watch.

In other related news, ESPN is reporting that Stan “The man!” Parrish is going to be our new head coach. This is GREAT news!!!

He was the one who taught Nate Davis to be a great QB, he has been the one orchestrating our offense since he and Brady came in to the school, and as much as I was sad we were losing Brady my sadness of losing Stan was just as high.

I know it’s just economics that caused Brady to go to SDSU, but it is very good news we get to keep Stan.