When the word came Sunday afternoon that Ball State would be left out of a bowl game this year, the 2011 season officially ended for the Cardinals. There would be no more practices until spring, and ballstatesports.com set the countdown clock for Sept. 8, the date of Ball State's first announced game of the 2012 season.
While athletic director Tom Collins acknowledged his disappointment at being left out of a bowl game, he said Ball State is ready to begin preparations for next year.
"We're going to build from here and move on," Collins said.
Coach Pete Lembo has already moved on to 2012. After Ball State's 45-28 loss to Toledo on the day after Thanksgiving, Lembo said he would be hitting the road to visit recruits the next week, while Ball State waited to find out its bowl fate.
Collins said recruits visited Muncie last weekend and more are scheduled for this weekend.
Those visits have already started paying off. Antonio Johnson, a linebacker from Shaker Heights, Ohio, committed to Ball State after his visit. According to ESPN, Johnson is the 18th member of Ball State's recruiting class. As National Signing Day approaches on Feb. 1, those numbers will likely grow even larger.
When the recruiting period is a little less busy for Lembo, he and Collins will hold for their annual review of the program.
"Pete and I will sit down and go over all the good things he and the student-athletes did," Collins said. "I know Pete has got some things he wants us to consider moving forward."
Collins said he wasn't sure if he would consider giving Lembo a contract extension. In 2009, Collins gave both men's basketball coach Billy Taylor and women's basketball coach Kelly Packard two-year contract extensions following their early success at Ball State. Taylor was entering the third year of his original contract at the time of the extension and Packard entering her second.
Lembo is entering the second year of his contract, which runs through the 2014 season and pays him $350,000 a year. The contract also has an option year for 2015, which can only be picked up during December 2012.
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