Ball State football: Will Cardinals finally break through, get back to bowl?

Can Ball State football have better close game luck and finally get back to the MAC championship under head coach Mike Neu?

Ball State football coach Mike Neu has been close to getting the Cardinals back to the postseason for the first time since 2013. To do that, he is going to need to find a way to get his team to win the close ones as the Cardinals have gone 5-11 in one-score games during his tenure, including losing three games last season by a total of eight points.

If any of those games over the past few years go the Cardinals’ way, they could have been playing for MAC titles and going to bowl games. Ball State had the league’s top scoring offense last season and there is a good chance that they could have the best offense in the league yet again with the talent that they have returning.

Ball State historically is not the easiest place in the country to win. They have only been to seven total bowl games as a program and they have never won any of them.

The most successful season that the Cardinals have ever had was in 2008, when they went 12-1 under then head coach Brady Hoke and were led by star quarterback Nate Davis and were one win away from making it to a BCS bowl until they were upset by Buffalo in the MAC title.

I don’t know that the Cardinals are going to have that type of a season, but I think this could be the breakthrough that fans in Muncie, Ind., have been waiting for under Neu.