Ball State Cardinals 2026 Season Preview

Year Two Under Uremovich

Mike Uremovich's debut ended at 4-8, 3-5 in the Mid-American, and the power rating (No. 134) puts Ball State among the weaker rosters nationally, so the results have not caught up to any benefit of the doubt yet. Nothing here is about his standing, only what the roster showed on the field, and it showed a program still short of competitive with the top of the MAC. Year two brings a full offseason to install his system, which matters more for this staff than any one number on the card, given how thin the margin was in conference play.

Luster Inherits a Broken Offense

Ball State's 2025 offense finished 136th in success rate and 134th in yards per play, a unit that couldn't stay on schedule or protect the passer, allowing 49 sacks. Keldric Luster arrives from Texas State to take over that operation, and his job is less about scheme and more about survival behind a line that got the last quarterback hit constantly. The explosiveness number, 38th nationally, hints at a big-play streak buried under all that inefficiency, and Luster's margin for error will be whether he can turn those flashes into scoring drives instead of stalled ones at 2.71 points per opportunity.

Kiael Kelly's 1,560 yards walk out the door along with an offense that ranked 134th in yards per play and got sacked 49 times, and Ball State replaces him with a transfer who has thrown all of 14 career passing yards. Keldric Luster arrives from Texas State as the named starter, not as one name in a competition, which means the Cardinals are betting on unseen upside over a proven commodity. Bodie Derrer and Khalel Wright return with no game statistics of their own, so whatever Luster shows early is effectively the entire quarterback résumé this staff has to work with heading into 2026.

Qua Ashley's 547 yards walk out the door with no obvious heir already on campus, since TJ Horton (180 yards) and Jalen Bonds (77 yards, 1 TD) were complementary pieces last year, not the primary back. Ball State answered by going outside for volume, adding Johnny Thompson Jr. from Kansas and unproven juco/high school pieces in Char'rese Breveard and Anthony McMullen, betting that Thompson's college snaps translate better than anything returning in the room. That's a real gamble behind a line that allowed 49 sacks and produced a 32.7% success rate, so whoever wins carries won't find much room until the blocking improves.

No returning receiver topped 244 yards last season, and Ball State's leading pass catcher, Qian Magwood, is gone, leaving a passing game that ranked 131st in yards per game to be rebuilt almost from scratch. Donovan Hamilton (20 catches, 244 yards) is the closest thing to a proven option, but the room otherwise leans on unproven pieces like Jamarion McDougle and Elisha Durham plus a five-man freshman class headlined by Tayshon Bardo, Mark Hanniford and Jabari Smith Jr. With that little experience on the outside, expect Mike Uremovich's offense, which finished 136th in success rate a year ago, to lean on the run again until Hamilton or one of the newcomers forces the issue.

Ball State's tight end room produced almost nothing to protect last season, with Koby Gross (10 catches, 141 yards, 1 TD), Kameron Anthony (7 catches, 117 yards, 2 TD) and Drew Cassens (5 catches, 55 yards, 1 TD) all gone from an offense that ranked 134th in yards per play and 136th in success rate. What remains is Tate Hoover, who caught one pass for 9 yards, plus unproven bodies in Lucas Andresen, Leo Collins, Cole Coonrod and Mason Riggins. Dartmouth transfer Sean Ward arrives with the identical one-catch, 9-yard line as Hoover, and Rice transfer Alex Scherle brings no logged production either, so this group has to create a receiving threat from scratch rather than replace one.

Forty-nine sacks allowed and a 32.7% success rate tell the real story here, and Mike Uremovich responded by pouring five new bodies into the room, including tackles Brady Weber and Misael Sandoval and interior linemen Jacob Jeudy, Evan Downer and Zion Haney. Most of the room technically returns, with seniors Chris Hood and Luke Dalton and juniors Cole Mosier and Jackson Ruess among the older faces back, but there is no depth chart clarity on who actually started behind that porous 2025 line, so the newcomers arrive with a real shot to start immediately. Ball State ranked 38th nationally in explosiveness on successful plays, meaning the skill talent can hit chunk gains, but until this reshuffled front cuts down the sack total and third-down failures (119th), that explosiveness stays a wasted asset.

Nathan Voorhis took 15.5 tackles for loss and 10 sacks with him, and that production simply isn't walking back through the door. Ball State ranked 116th in tackles for loss and 113th in yards per play allowed last year, and the returning names up front, Ameir Glenn's 2.5 TFL and Ben Marsh's 1.5, don't come close to replacing that edge presence. The fix is imported: Jared Badie arrives from San Diego State off a season with 1.5 TFL and 0.5 sacks, and Maverick Gracio joins from Pittsburgh with a sack of his own, but both are lateral, complementary additions rather than a true Voorhis replacement, which makes another year in the mid-100s in run defense the realistic floor for Mike Uremovich's front.

Ball State's leading tacklers at linebacker a year ago, Alfred Chea and Joey Stemler, are both gone, taking 59 and 44 tackles out of a front seven that already ranked 116th in tackles for loss. What's left is Layton Starks (10 tackles) and Justin Thomas (7 tackles) trying to hold down the middle while a five-man transfer and freshman haul, headlined by Cincinnati arrival Cincear Lewis, gets thrown into the mix. This is a rebuild by addition rather than continuity, and until Lewis or one of the newcomers proves he can replace Chea's disruption, the run defense that ranked 108th in yards allowed per game has little reason to look different.

Ball State's secondary allowed 227 yards per game through the air (83rd) but got gashed on the ground and finished 113th in yards per play allowed, and the group that produced that mess is almost entirely gone, with Michael Gravely Jr., Ashton Whitner and Muheem McCargo among 11 departed defensive backs. Mike Uremovich rebuilt the room through the portal, adding corners Chris Jackson from Colorado State and Cedric Franklin II from Arkansas State along with safety Sterling Smith from Purdue, while Tobi Adewoyin (14 tackles) and Deondre Shepherd (13 tackles, 0.5 TFL) are the lone holdovers with real snaps on tape. That much turnover at the back end means Jackson and Franklin are effectively the new starting corner tandem, and how fast they mesh with Adewoyin will decide whether a defense that ranked 105th in havoc rate can tighten up on schedule-defining downs.

Ball State's kicking picture is oddly crowded but unproven at the top: Hudson Fiene made both his tries with a 28-yard long, while Carson Holmer connected on just 3 of 7 with a 23-yard long, and neither matches the leg DC Pippin took with him after hitting 5 of 6 last fall. Whoever wins the job inherits low volume and lower certainty, and the departure of Adam Saul, who averaged 40.7 yards on 70 punts, leaves Lachlan Mathieson and Cole Stumbaugh to punt without any prior stats on file. This is a unit replacing its most proven performers with question marks, not continuity.

Built to Fall Back

Four wins masked how thin this was: Ball State went 3-1 in one-score conference games and got outgained badly by league opponents, the kind of gap that rarely repeats. Mike Uremovich's second team also churns nearly its entire two-deep, importing Keldric Luster from Texas State to run the offense after Kiael Kelly's 1,560 yards walk out the door, while Nathan Voorhis' 10 sacks and Alfred Chea's 59 tackles leave a defense that already got scored on cheaply. CJ Nelson and Jabari Smith Jr. give Luster new targets, but with a 113th-ranked class and barely a sliver of production back on either side, 2026 looks like the correction, not a repeat.

Luster Must Steady This Offense

Keldric Luster inherits the job from Kiael Kelly with almost nothing proven behind him, since barely any of last year's production returns and the offense already needed 17.2 yards for every point it scored, well worse than the league median. That inefficiency, paired with a conference-play yardage margin that badly lagged Ball State's actual win rate, points to a step back unless Luster and the arriving CJ Nelson turn empty yardage into points far more often than this group did in 2025. If that conversion problem persists, the encouraging record from a year ago does not repeat.

Uremovich's Home Chalk Illusion

Ball State went 4-1 against the number at home, but the deeper numbers say sell, not buy. A conference-game yardage margin that implied a much worse in-league win rate than Mike Uremovich's group actually posted, a 3-1 mark in one-score games, and a turnover margin that ran negative all point to a 2025 record that flattered this roster. The one real building block is an offense that burned 17.2 yards per point scored against a 14.1 league median, leaving points on the field that a more efficient 2026 unit could start cashing in, even as the defense that got scored on cheaply (13.6 yards allowed per point) needs to close that gap first.