Jim Mashek

WESTERN KENTUCKY STAYS IN CONTENTION FOR C-USA CHAMPIONSHIP GAME; TOPS WILL TANGLE WITH LSU ON SATURDAY IN BATON ROUGE

Western Kentucky’s Tyson Helton has collected many memorable and noteworthy victories in his seven years as the Hilltoppers’ head football coach.

And, from the outside looking in, it might SEEM like Helton and the Tops have owned their longtime rival, Middle Tennessee State University, nothing could be further from the truth when analyzing WKU’s final home regular-season game on Saturday evening at Houchens-Smith Stadium.

The Conference USA championship remains within the Hilltoppers’ grasp, and that was WKU’s primary goal when they started fall camp in the heat and humidity of August.

The Tops might have flirted with disaster against a struggling MTSU squad on Saturday, but when push came to shove, WKU shoved the Blue Raiders all over the place, claiming a 42-26 victory before an enthusiastic paid crowd of 16,547 at The Houch.

“We kept the conference race alive,” Helton said in his postgame press conference, “and we control our own destiny … We haven’t hit the mountaintop yet, but we’re getting better.”

Western Kentucky won its third straight game, all against Conference USA opponents, while improving to 8-2 overall and 6-1 in C-USA. MTSU, refusing to play out the string for embattled head coach Derek Mason, dropped to 1-9 overall.

The Blue Raiders are winless in six conference games.

And nothing about this significant triumph came easily for Helton and the Tops.

“I challenged the team,” Helton said, “and said, ‘Boys, we’ve got to go play a complete game.’ This game went about how I thought it would go … I told our offense we probably needed to score in the mid-30s.”

The Hilltoppers did better than that, of course, putting the game away on Rodney Tisdale’s deft 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Noah Meyers on a fourth-and-goal play with 2:43 left in the game. Tisdale, the talented redshirt freshman from Jacksonville, Florida, turned in a command performance, completing 29 of 41 passes for 371 yards and three touchdowns.

Now the Tops will take this momentum for their final non-conference game of the regular season, a journey to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to tangle with the tradition-rich LSU Tigers under the lights at Tiger Stadium.

“What a great opportunity, to be on a great stage,” Helton said. “That’s what you play this game for … I’ve played and coached there before, but never as the head coach here. It’s going to be exciting.”

LSU (6-4 overall) fired the well-traveled Brian Kelly on October 25, after unbeaten Texas A&M sent the Tigahs’ fans to the exits early, rolling past Kelly’s squad, 49-25. Since then, LSU athletics director Scott Woodward — who left Texas A&M to take over at his alma mater, was dismissed, too, and bombastic Gov. Jeff Landry, who claimed Donald Trump would be better versed to hire Kelly’s successor before the smoke cleared and Woodward was history, too.

The presidential palace in Washington was already wrought with angst and anger, and Louisiana’s capital city has followed suit, with the Hilltoppers headed that way in a few days to test themselves against a capable LSU squad clearly in a state of flux.

Meanwhile, the Conference USA title chase became clearer when defending C-USA champion Jacksonville State remained unbeaten in six league games, knocking off Kennesaw State, 36-25, on Saturday night in Kennesaw, Georgia.

The Hilltoppers can claim an outright C-USA championship with a victory over the Gamecocks in Jacksonville, Alabama, during the Thanksgiving weekend, and defeating Jax State would bring another home game, and a Conference USA championship game, back to Bowling Green, something that hasn’t happened since former WKU coach Jeff Brohm’s Hilltoppers outdistanced Louisiana Tech, 58-44, in December, 2016.

WKU reached the C-USA championship game by squeezing past Jax State, 19-17, on Lucas Carniero’s 50-yard field goal in the final seconds. Six days later, the Hilltoppers got waxed by Jax State, 52-12, at AmFirst Stadium in NASCAR Country.

Tyson Helton had plenty of roster turnover going into the 2025 season, not uncommon in this age of NIL money and the NCAA Transfer Portal, but he’s proven adept at the formula for sustained success. Helton has compiled a 56-34 overall record, while going 40-14 against C-USA opponents, and the victory over MTSU means Helton is a perfect 7-for-7 in rivalry games against the Blue Raiders of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The “100 Miles of Hate” rivalry has become more like the hammer and the nail when it comes to Helton’s leadership on The Hill.

Helton preferred to give credit to his 30 players who were honored on Senior Day, a bulk of them who showed up after multiple stops at other schools.

“This is a very special football team,” Helton said. “They love the game of football, they play for each other.”

And the Hilltoppers have found the critical piece in their offense with Rodney Tisdale, Jr., who stepped into the starting role after former WKU starter Maverick McIvor was diagnosed with a pectoral injury, AFTER McIvor earned C-USA Offensive Player of the Week honors three times in the first six weeks of the season.

“Rodney’s really getting comfortable out there,” Helton said. “He’s doing exactly what I thought he could do … I’m excited for him, and his future. He made some outstanding throws tonight, and that’s good to see.”

It was the fourth-down pass to WKU tight end Noah Meyers, on the goal line, that put Saturday’s game on ice. But Tisdale was a cool customer, throughout, and the Hilltoppers’ ground game clicked in the second half as Western Kentucky amassed 642 yards in total offense.

WKU also had a bulge of seven minutes and change in time of possession, in part because backup QB Roman Gagliano turned in a valiant performance, in a losing effort, while passing for 372 yards and two touchdowns himself.

The Hilltoppers defense forced a chip-shot field goal from MTSU’s Jason Hathaway, in the opening moments of the fourth quarter, after an interception and 62-yard return by Blue Raiders linebacker Parker Hughes, allowing his offense to set up shop at the WKU 32-yard line.

With the Tops nursing a 28-23 lead.

“We focused on the red zone, in our preparation, really,” WKU safety Dave Herard said when it was over. “We wanted to make sure they didn’t cross that (goal) line … Coach (Helton) puts a big emphasis on not letting them into the end zone, so that’s a big thing. We’ve really got to focus and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

It didn’t happen, enough, at least as far as the Blue Raiders are concerned. WKU bolted to a 14-0 lead on Rodney Tisdale’s deft 22-yard touchdown pass to Hilltoppers wideout Matthew Henry, early in the second quarter, but in a rivalry game, crazy things can happen.

And crazy things did happen Saturday evening at The Houch.

“We had a ‘championship mindset’ … We had to take shots downfield,” Henry said.

Now the Hilltoppers get to take a shot at one of college football’s heavy hitters, the Bayou Bengals being coached by interim LSU coach Frank Wilson, a talented recruiter and well traveled assistant. WIlson, 52, played his college football at NCAA Division I-AA Nicholls State, in Thibodaux, Louisiana, before spending seven years in the high school coaching ranks before making the rounds at Ole Miss, Southern Miss, Tennessee and finally LSU.

“It’s definitely a challenge for us, and we’re going there to win a football game,” WKU coach Tyson Helton said.

With a collective eye on Jacksonville State in the distance.