Ball State gets little respect going up against Indiana Saturday, at least not from sports bettors.  Nearly 90% of the betting action was on Indiana against the spread and 62% on the money line.

Still, the odds remained at Indiana -3 1/2 after opening at -3.

"Some books are starting to list this one at -4 in order to get more action on Ball State," commented Sports911.com resident Sports Handicapper, Tyrone Black.  "Indiana has clobbered Ball State over its last two meetings between each other but that was pre-2000."

With a -3 line, oddsmakers at least expect this to be a very close game.

See all odds at

The Ball State Daily News explains what needs to be accomplished in order to defeat Indiana:

"If Ball State University intends to knock off Indiana University on Saturday, stopping the Hoosiers' receivers will be vital.

"Indiana returns its top four receivers from a year ago in James Hardy, Marcus Thigpen, Jahkeen Gilmore and James Bailey.

"The four combined for 2,046 yards and 18 touchdowns last year. The 6-foot-7 Hardy led the way with 61 catches for 893 yards and 10 touchdowns. Bailey is the number two receiver and Thigpen has moved to running back, where he is the starter.

"I think we've got some match-up problems." Ball State coach Brady Hoke said. "They're very skilled and I think they're big. Bigger than what we're used to. [Eric Deslauriers] from Eastern [Michigan], he's a big receiver and played well. So that's going to be something we're worried about."

"Deslauriers had 10 receptions for 129 yards in last Thursday's game against Ball State.

"The Cardinal defense will have to step it up also. After giving up more than 450 yards of offense last season, they didn't show much improvement in that category in the opener. The Eagles tallied 435 yards, with quarterback Tyler Jones accounting for 335 of those.

"We ran by the quarterback a couple times and you can't do that," Hoke said. "You got to know your responsibility and you become a bad tackling team when you aren't aggressive. It's nice to win and be able to address those than lose and address them."

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Sports911.com News Wire

Originally published September 8, 2006 11:09 pm ET