2011 Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders Football Preview

If the outlook for the Middle Tennessee football program in 2011 could be summed up in a weather forecast, the best summation would probably be, “mostly cloudy with a chance of sunshine.” An uncertain future awaits a program whose coach is esteemed by his colleagues, but whose players might not have the seasoning needed to navigate a full Sun Belt Conference season with unwavering confidence and expert skill.

Middle Tennessee won its final three regular season games of 2010 to qualify for bowl eligibility, but MTSU was expecting bigger and better things than mere bowl eligibility.  Other than the winning streak, it was a disappointing season in Murfreesboro. Bowl eligibility, for one thing, was attained at the lowest possible level, with a 6-6 record that impressed absolutely no one. Second, the Blue Raiders lost their bowl game, falling to Miami of Ohio in the GoDaddy.com Bowl. The 2010 season was the time when MTSU was expected to compete neck-and-neck with Troy for the Sun Belt championship. Instead, Florida International stunned the whole conference by winning the title.

Coming off a 10-win season in 2009, the 2010 campaign marked a substantial step backward for this program. Everything went south when starting quarterback and senior leader Dwight Dasher was suspended for the first month of the season due to suspicions about loans he received from a booster. Dasher returned to the field for the team’s conference game of the year, a nationally-televised prime-time showdown against Troy on October 5, but he was rusty and thoroughly out of sync. Troy trounced MTSU by a 42-13 score, and it took a month for the team to recover from the letdown that followed. Head coach Rick Stockstill did much to turn MTSU into a high-caliber team in 2009, but the Murphy’s Law nature of the 2010 season has reintroduced a lot of questions in the land of the Blue Raiders. Stockstill is regarded as one of the league’s better coaches, and the results prove it: The Blue Raiders have won a league championship and played in three bowl games in just the last five years. However, Stockstill, now without Dasher at quarterback, will have his work cut out for him in 2011.

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The Blue Raiders return seven starters from an offense that could rush but not throw last year. The inability to stretch defenses through the air caused MTSU some problems last season. The Blue Raiders will be breaking in a new quarterback this season and will rely on a seasoned running back corps in 2011. The defense, for its part, returns just three players. Last season, Middle Tennessee gave up nearly 30 points per game. To be competitive this season, that number will have to come down, but one wonders if it will.

Georgia Tech makes the trip to Middle Tennessee during week two. The Blue Raiders have lost to three consecutive BCS opponents at home, with the last win coming over Maryland in 2008. Prior to the Yellow Jackets’ arrival, Middle Tennessee travels to Purdue. On the first Saturday in November, the Blue Raiders travel to Knoxville to take on in-state rival Tennessee. Those tests need to serve as teachable moments that will make MTSU as resilient as possible when Sun Belt foes come calling.