Hilltoppers head to MTSU seeking rebound
Oct. 15—Western Kentucky football will look to bounce back from a pair of consecutive football losses when the Hilltoppers travel to face Middle Tennessee State in the annual "100 Miles of Hate" rivalry matchup Saturday.
Kickoff is set for 2:30 p.m. at Floyd Stadium in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in front of an ESPN+ television audience.
"Got to get a conference win, get back to the winning column, and they'll be the same way," WKU head coach Tyson Helton said of MTSU. "They'll have their jaw set and they'll be trying to get in the winning column, so it should be a good game.
"I've always appreciated this rivalry. I always thought records didn't matter. Home or away, guys always get up for this game no matter what. We're too close to each other. We respect each other too much, so it just makes for a good football game."
The Hilltoppers (3-3, 1-1 in Conference USA) fell 34-27 to Troy on Oct. 1, followed by a 31-28 loss at UTSA last week, but Helton's confidence in his squad remains high.
"This conference is so competitive right now, it's anybody's game in this conference," he said. "Our team has done a really good job of understanding to not look past the next opponent, not to be thinking, 'Oh, well, if we do this, we could make a run.' We're taking it one game at a time, Middle Tennessee is the same way, and so we got to be able to go out there on the road against a really good opponent and come away with a big conference win.
"If we could get back on track in this game, I feel really good about where we're at."
The Blue Raiders (3-3, 0-2) enter following consecutive losses of their own — a 35-40 defeat to UTSA on Sept. 30 and a 41-14 loss at UAB last week — but Helton doesn't expect anything less than MTSU's best effort.
"It's a challenging game," he said. "When you're breaking them down and you're game planning for them, there's a lot to deal with there on both sides of the ball. We got to play at a high level for sure, we got to know what's coming at us on both sides of the football, we got to be able to get after their quarterback and not allow them to have those explosive plays."
MTSU, which upset Miami on the road earlier this season, is led by quarterback Chase Cunningham, who's thrown for 1,564 yards and nine touchdowns with four interceptions.
WKU, ranked 14th in the country in scoring at 40.8 points per game, will counter with a group headlined by signal-caller Austin Reed, who's passed for 2,036 yards and 19 TDs with only four interceptions.
