Roundtable Revisited: What Caused WKU's Football Season to Derail?
Back in August, The Towel Rack's staff got together to wonder what could cause the Hilltoppers to fall below expectations. Now, let's revisit how spot-on some of those fears became.
As we were in the final stretch of the Hilltopper offseason in early August, right about when fall camp was starting, when there was still all the optimism and promise in the world, The Towel Rack’s staff got together and pondered what had the opportunity to send WKU’s season off the rails.
You know how the season actually played out: Despite an 8-5 record, WKU underwhelmed in almost every conceivable way, with the unanimous conference favorite failing to even make the title game. Western got some heroic performances in the year’s final game against ODU to re-spark optimism into 2024, even if the goals are a little less lofty (for better and worse). Without question, though, in a year where Western was supposed to flirt with the coveted “Group of Five” New Years Six Bowl spot, needing a 28 point comeback on a team that squeaked into bowl eligibility to eek out eight wins was not what Hilltopper Nation had in mind.
With the story having been told, let’s revisit that roundtable and, with full hindsight, see if fears were unfounded or ultimately - and disappointingly - became true.
Fletcher Keel - Failure To Play For 60 Minutes in Competitive Games
While maybe not the biggest story of WKU’s 2023 campaign, it was certianly a large part of it, especially once the CUSA season began.
In the Hilltoppers’ first three conference games, WKU scored a combined eight points in the second half, a stretch that included nearly blowing a 35-7 halftime lead at Louisiana Tech. WKU didn’t score in the third quarter of a conference game until UTEP.
Folks, that was five games into the conference year.
This is what I wrote in that August roundtable:
…if focus is lost for even a quarter, dropping a game to a La Tech, Liberty or even Sam Houston St. could leave a bad taste in our mouths for years to come and leave us all asking and wondering what could have been.
I don’t like to ring my own bell. But, uh, ding ding.
It’s funny, in hindsight, that those were the games chosen too: Despite going 2-1 in those games, the Tops did not play well in the second half of any of them. They were outscored 21-0 against the Bulldogs, saw a 14-10 halftime deficit turn into a 42-29 defeat versus Liberty and needed to go 99 yards on seven plays for a fourth quarter touchdown that proved to be the difference against the Bearkats.
Jared Rosdeutscher - The O-Line Fails to Gel Together
If there was one unit on the field that passed, routinely, with flying colors, it was the Hilltoppers offensive line.
WKU finished among the nation’s best in sacks allowed, giving up only 13 in 13 games. That number tied them for the seventh-fewest in the country, along with Georgia and Oklahoma State.
The job was even more impressive when you consider WKU lost two members of the 2022 offensive line to the P5 ranks in Gunner Britton and Rusty Staats.
I don’t expect them to be perfect every game but when you have an elite level quarterback such as Reed,” Jared wrote, “Protecting him and giving him time is the most important thing for this offense to me.”
Although this was a completely legitimate fear and WKU’s offense was a struggle at times, the offensive line was far from the biggest issue. In fact, WKU’s offensive line finished tied for ninth in sacks allowed in America. They helped Austin Reed and Caden Veltkamp lead WKU’s passing offense to 15th in the nation at year’s end. Although the running game was much more pedestrian (117th), it’s hard to argue they were the problem when they were that good in the passing game and 51st in overall offense.
Matt McCay - The Hilltoppers’ Depth Begins to Wear Thin
Jake Gary - Reed, Corley Go Down With Injury
Devin Stewart - Austin Reed Spends Time Off the Field Due to Injury
Do you remember this theme of the offseason? The nearly all-encompassing fear that the Hilltoppers’ top two offensive weapons would miss significant time?
We’re going to fold all three of these together a) for simplicity reasons and b) because all three of theme were pretty bang on, in one aspect or another.
The overarching theme here is: “Do the Tops have enough depth to keep up if key pieces go down?”
A training camp injury to Michael Mathison kept him off the field for the entirety of the season, Malachi Corley was rarely at 100%, and two of the most important figures to the Hilltoppers on defense - Upton Stout and Donut Evans - missed time, often together. You get the picture, and we could keep going.
Here’s what Matt wrote when discussing the importance of reliable depth throughout a season.
“What we do not know about this team (and most teams don’t until they get into it) is who else steps up and is an everyday starter? Who else comes in and fills out the depth chart,” Matt opined. “I personally believe WKU probably has most of its answers, but in football, if you have a gaping hole somewhere, sometimes it doesn’t matter how good the other players are.”
Devin so ominously added:
“The only thing stopping WKU would be WKU themselves, in the form of injuries.”
The Hilltoppers have a rich history of “next-man-up” mentality, but a lot of that comes year over year.
Only four offensive skill position players played in all 13 games: Elijah Young, Davion Ervin-Poindexter, DK Hutchinson and Easton Messer.
Austin Reed and Malachi Corley each played in 12, as did Craig Burt Jr. and River Helms, though Corley wasn’t necessarily a full participant in each of his 12 games he played in.
All told, each of WKU’s position groups had at least one game missed due to injury, sit out, and/or eligibility issue by year’s end, and only one position (quarterback) had not joined “Muscle Beach” by the end of the regular season.
Alex Sherfield - WKU Plays Down to Their Opponents
This is maybe the hardest of this list to quantify.
Did WKU struggle against some of the FBS/CUSA newcomers because they were playing down or because the Hilltoppers weren’t up to snuff this year?
“As we all know, Conference USA has become a very unproven conference after FBS transitions & realignments,” Alex opined. “While I can see WKU being, at least, over .500 in non-conference play, the CUSA battles are slowly picking up some steam for the avid Group 5 connoisseurs.”
WKU’s five conference wins were the fewest in a non-COVID season of the Tyson Helton era and they lost to three of the conference’s newcomers, and beat the fourth by one possession.
While WKU’s offense finished top 50 in the nation in terms of points per game, and posted a top 100 defense in terms of points against, I think we can all agree the Tops were exactly who they were: A good team who wasn’t good enough when it mattered most, due to any number of factors.
How did the Tops fare against what your biggest fears heading into 2023 were? What are your way-too-early fears for 2024?