The conference’s landscape also has changed. “The mentality for everybody else changes, but ours is the same,” Plitt said. Four players earned all-conference honors, including linebacker Anthony Ekpe, who could move into a starting job after recording a team-high five sacks. Justin Hall and Yo’Heinz Tyler are expected to again form one of the league’s top receiving tandems and all five offensive line starters remain in place.ĭefensively, nine of 11 starters come back from a squad that had a league-high 18 takeaways. Will Jones and Tye Evans, who split carries during the second half of last season, are back.
Quarterback Drew Plitt returns for a sixth season. “All we’ve really proven now is we can win some of those close games. “A year ago we were a team that, we were scary but we couldn’t finish,” he said. So while he’s confident Ball State can defy the odds, he’s more focused on making the long journey back. And no MAC school has won consecutive titles since 2011-12. Only three teams have earned back-to-back crowns since the first championship game in 1997. The last six league champs came from six different campuses. When Ball State was picked to repeat as Mid-American Conference champion, coach Mike Neu shrugged off the prediction in his typically low-key manner.
