Keith Wenning should never have thrown 71 passes against Northern Illinois last weekend. Really, the junior quarterback should never throw as many times as he did. Ever.
The fact he dropped back in the pocket and tossed that many is remarkable and honestly, very surprising.
By looking at this statistic alone, I wasn't surprised to see Ball State drop its second Mid-American Conference game in as many weeks because history tells me all I need to know.
Wenning owns the top three spots in pass attempts in a single game in program history. Last season, he threw 50 times at Western Michigan and 52 times against Toledo. And he set a record with his 71 attempts against Northern Illinois on Saturday.
Coincidentally, all three of those games resulted in a loss. Ball State lost 45-35 at Western Michigan, 45-28 against Toledo and 35-23 to Northern Illinois.
The same can be said by looking at the same statistic from a grander perspective.
Wenning's 71 pass attempts were the third-most ever in a MAC game, behind Andy Schmitt, who attempted 76 passes against Toledo and 80 versus Central Michigan in 2008.
So, to say it was good that Wenning threw the ball as many times as he did would be ludicrous. He completed less than 60 percent of them. In all honesty, it undermined Ball State's rare inability to establish a successful running game.
A prime example of this occurred late in the fourth quarter. Ball State had both the ball and lead and appeared to be on its way to slamming the door on any possible comeback by Northern Illinois.
On third-and-3 from his own 26-yardline, Wenning launched a heave down the visitors' sideline, which fell incomplete and forced a three-and-out.
This was difficult to digest, particularly because Ball State has repeatedly punished opposing defenses with its lethal running back duo of Jahwan Edwards and Horactio Banks.
I understand having a pass-heavy offense. I get it. I was a part of one myself in a premier high school program back home in St. Louis, and we were pretty successful. But we had a running game, and we never got away from it.
Trying to understand why Ball State got away from what has been a good chunk of the offense over the majority of the season is hard to comprehend.
We watched Edwards and Banks carve up Eastern Michigan and Clemson in the first two weeks of the season. But since then, Ball State's rushing totals have drastically diminished. It rushed for 206 yards against Indiana, 169 against South Florida, 112 at Kent State and 129 against Northern Illinois.
Ball State ran 100 plays against Northern Illinois, and less than 30 percent of them were runs. When Lembo arrived two years ago, he preached how his offense would be pass heavy.
So far, we've seen a strong dose of the pass, but maybe it's time Ball State used the most experienced offensive line in the country to its advantage by running the ball more effectively, instead of shying away from it.
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