Football (2-3, MAC 0-1) will return home to face off against the Ball State Cardinals (2-3, 0-1 MAC) at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at Huskies Stadium. The Huskies have lost three-straight away games by 10 points or less.

The Huskies’ offense has mustered just 15.3 points-per-game since averaging 47.5 in its first two games of the season. Many of the struggles can be attributed to the amount of turnovers the teams has been surrendering.

The Huskies have turned the ball over 11 times during their current losing streak, with redshirt junior quarterback Drew Hare committing nine of those turnovers.

“Our execution has been pretty dang good,” said head coach Rod Carey. Chi“But when you turn the ball over, that negates everything good that you’re doing. We got to stop turning the ball over, and we have to pay attention and protect the ball.”

During last week’s game against the Chippewas, Carey made the decision to sit Hare in the third quarter, replacing him with backup quarterback Ryan Graham. Hare was immediately re-entered into the game after Graham threw a quick interception.

Keeping Hare off the field is “far from my mind,” Carey said. “Drew’s our quarterback and we have a ton of confidence in him. We sat him because he wasn’t taking care of the ball and we just needed to give him a minute to watch the game. When he came back in he didn’t turn it over and lead us down a touchdown drive.”

Though Hare has gone through a rough patch, he remains “a very confident person,” Carey said. “I think he is disappointed, upset, frustrated — all those words we were talking about — but very determined at the same point. He’s wanting to push forward.”

The Cardinals are on a two-game losing streak coming into Saturday’s game, with their last loss coming against Toledo (4-0, MAC 1-0) 24-10. With a loss Saturday, the Huskies would fall to 2-4 on the season and 0-2 in conference play. Junior running back Joel Bouagnon sees the upcoming game as an important one althought he “isn’t worried.”

“We’ve been in bad situations before,” Bouagnon said. “We’re not looking down. Just looking at the next game as we got to work.”