What Ball State head coach Mike Neu said about Penn State ahead of Saturday’s matchup
Ball State head coach Mike Neu and his Cardinals are traveling to State College this weekend to play Penn State football as a 22-point underdog, but according to Neu it’s a role and challenge his team is willing to embrace.
“That’s not a role that our guys wouldn’t welcome or embrace or be ready for that challenge,” Neu said. “It is what it is. They had a huge win to open the season against a ranked opponent. That was a good ol’ fashioned Big Ten slugfest from back in the day and it was a great game for four quarters.”
While the Cardinals are strong underdogs, they’re entering the matchup with the same level of preparation they put into every matchup.
“We’re just really focused that we clean up the things we can take care of on our end of it to become a better football team,” Neu said. “...We’ll have a plan of attack and it’s about going in there and implementing that game plan all week here and then going in there and executing at a high level and the best we can on Saturday.”
The Cardinals enter the matchup knowing the team across from them has the talent to be dangerous, and Neu made note of the level of ability Penn State’s roster possesses in all areas.
“Obviously it’s a very talented football team, they had a huge win last week against Wisconsin on the road,” he said. “Very talented roster from top to bottom. (Penn State head) coach (James) Franklin has done a great job with their staff.”
Here’s everything Neu said about Penn State during his weekly press conference.
Ball State head coach Mike Neu
(on playing Penn State)
“This is a great opportunity for us as a program, to go into a place like Penn State with (its) history. Obviously it’s a very talented football team, they had a huge win last week against Wisconsin on the road. Very talented roster from top to bottom. (Penn State head) coach (James) Franklin has done a great job with their staff. This will be the first time since 2019 where they’ve had a full house at Beaver Stadium. So it’s a great opportunity here. One of the biggest challenges you have is certainly trying to do a great job in practice preparing for the noise. Obviously excited, our guys are excited about the opportunity here. Certainly there’s a lot of things that we need to continue to work on, on our end of it too, that we gotta clean up from last week. Things that showed up on tape as areas we need to improve on. So we’ve been hard at work on that, at the same time making sure we give our guys the best game plan possible to go out to Penn State and compete our tail off.”
(on preparing for the noise at Beaver Stadium)
“It’s definitely hard. Every speaker that we have available here in the stadium — hopefully we don’t upset our neighbors here that back up to the stadium — but we just try to play as loud of music as we possibly can, while also pumping in crowd noise as much as we can. So, we want to make sure that we really just make it as obnoxious as possible, where you can’t hear and you really have to just focus on silent communication and you have to be really good with it. If you’re one of the players that is lined up out wide, whether it’s on offense, whether it’s on defense, if you can’t hear, then you gotta just make sure that you’re watching the ball. Every tape that you watch when there’s a crowd there at Beaver Stadium, certainly the opponent has some pre-snap penalties and that’s one thing we want to make sure we take care of on our end.”
(on preparing for Penn State)
“We’ve got a veteran group of players here. A lot of these young men took the field back when we played Notre Dame in that kind of environment. That was a program, as well, that had a very storied past and a tremendous history. Very similar. Obviously this will be the first time we’ve played in a stadium where seats 100,000+. We’ve just got to make sure we don’t give them a bunch of reasons to be really loud. One thing that we can do on our end is go out and do a good job of executing and playing good football.”
(on limiting big plays)
“They’ve got a big play team. They’ve got some weapons, certainly. It starts with the running back group there. ... This team has got three Doak Walker candidates on their football team. It’s the only team in FBS that has that. Talented group. That’s a credit to them for the way they’ve recruited. We’ve got to embrace that challenge.”
(on Penn State’s defense)
“They’ve done a good job in recruiting. Then a couple of nice additions this offseason, they added a transfer from Temple [Arnold Ebiketie] who obviously showed up game No. 1 as a difference-maker in terms of a pass rusher, but he’s not the only one. They’ve got talented pass rushers, they’ve got talented linebackers, they’ve got talented guys in the secondary, they’ve got a lot of continuity on their defensive staff and with their defense overall. They’ve played high-level defense for a long time. Certainly that was on display last week against Wisconsin, with the way they played that game. We’ve got to have a plan in place on, first of all, what’s the best way for us to go about establishing the run, putting our guys in position to be successful and building on their strengths.”
