by In recent years, it is a feeling that has become all too familiar for Ball State fans.
It’s that sensation that comes alongside the knowledge that your team’s entire season is on the line. It’s that very same feeling that comes when team bowl eligibility is contingent on the outcome of a single game, especially when it’s hanging in the balance long before the team’s final game is played.
This is what describes the anxious emotions of Ball State fans as they watched their Cardinals take the field in chilly Getzville, New York, to face the Buffalo Bulls in what could be the team’s final chance to keep their postseason hopes alive.
Facing the Bulls in their stadium for the first time since 2016, it initially appeared as though the Cardinals would not be denied. Their offense offset the freezing weather in Getzville with a scorching barrage that lasted through the game’s first three quarters. By the end, redshirt freshman quarterback Kadin Semonza had led his team to their highest scoring game of the season, and yet, it wouldn’t be enough.
Buffalo stayed within striking distance, and between the fourth quarter and overtime period, Bulls senior quarterback C.J. Ogbonna led a 20-3 run to win the game 51-48, earning a bowl game berth for his team and putting Ball State’s bowl game hopes to bed in one fell swoop.
With a double-digit lead slipping through the Cardinals fingers in the fourth quarter, Ball State Head Coach Mike Neu did not hold back when discussing the loss.
“Double digit lead in the fourth quarter with half the quarter left to go and we can’t finish the deal … so disappointing,” Neu said. “Totally unacceptable.”
Despite leading the Cardinals’ offense to their highest offensive yard total of the season (520), Semonza says the positive stats don’t help to ease the pain of another tight loss.
“I’m not a big stat guy,” Semonza said. “You either win or you lose, and tonight we lost. I feel like every loss we’ve had this year has pretty much been one that we feel like we should have won, so it’s a terrible feeling.”
Semonza, who finished the contest with 327 passing yards and four touchdowns, noted that he is still “searching for the answer” to why the offense slowed down late in the game.
The Ball State quarterback’s top target, junior Tanner Koziol, rounded out the contest with 11 targets for 95 yards, including one touchdown reception that came in the second quarter. It was, however, the Cardinals’ newest wideout who racked up a team high in individual receiving yards. Leading Ball State in receiving yards for the past two games, junior wide receiver Justin Bowick has seen his role steadily increasing since his return from injury in week eight against Vanderbilt, as he finds chemistry with Semonza. Bowick accumulated 148 receiving yards to go along with two touchdowns in the contest.
Defensively for the Cardinals, it was a combination of late penalties that stole the spotlight in the fourth quarter. After junior defensive back DD Snyder picked up a pair of interceptions through three quarters, it was Ball State’s young freshman corners that counteracted the veteran’s savvy play with two pass interference penalties that extended what could have been the Bills’ final offensive possession of the game.
Neu called the self-inflicted penalties “unacceptable,” and following his performance, Snyder also noted that he felt the game was defined by those calls, defensively.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Snyder said. “Without the penalties, it is definitely a different outcome, but it happened, so we have to move forward.”
Moving toward Ball State’s final two games of the season, the Cardinals are determined to win despite the fact that bowl game eligibility is no longer a possibility, hoping to take their competition down with them.
“Despite our record, everybody in the locker room wants to win, so these next two games we are going to do our best to probably end some bowl hopes for other teams and get us a pair of wins to finish the season,” Snyder concluded.
