WKU Football: Keys to Victory vs. South Florida

What can Helton and the Tops do to Maximize Their Chances Against the Bulls?

Western Kentucky heads into the 2023 football season with massive expectations internally, and plenty of people - both local and national - believe WKU could be a contender to play in a New Years Six Bowl. At minimum, WKU is picked as the unanimous favorite to win Conference USA, with no other contender looking like a serious threat if WKU just meets average expectations.

Either of those achievements would be monumental for the Tops, considering WKU has not won a conference championship (or even won 10 games) since 2016. In fact, since 1980 under legendary coach Jimmy Feix, who won six of 11 championships from 1970 to 1980, WKU has only won four conference championships, an astoundingly low number for a program with an all-time winning percentage at nearly 60 percent (.587).

WKU has been quite good since 2011, even making a conference championship appearance in 2021 with several other high finishes. However, the Tops have not brought home the hardware with the exception of the 2015 and 2016 seasons. All of the high expectation for 2023 could plummet if WKU does not open with a win Saturday in Bowling Green.

WKU opens up its 2023 schedule at home against the University of South Florida Bulls.

First of all, for those battling the hurricanes down there in the Florida Gulf - including my sister, a cousin and a close friend - we’re praying for safety and minimal damage.

USF has fallen on hard times since Willie Taggart left for Oregon. That seems a lifetime ago, but it really was just 2016. Taggart left a year after WKU’s last meeting with USF in the 2015 Miami Beach Bowl, a 45-35 WKU victory.

Long story short, USF reached utter rock bottom last season, going 1-11 and shopping for a new coaching staff. They have hired a chunk of Tennessee’s offensive braintrust, including incoming head coach Alex Golesh, and the Bulls project to be better going forward.

We shall see, but expectations coming into the game (especially in the offseason) were that WKU should win going away. The line started at -13.5 for WKU, but it has shrunk significantly and it looks like we may have quite a competitive test coming into the Houch for the Tops.

So what does WKU need to do to stave off USF’s upset bid?

Keys to Victory

Don’t Suck

The first ingredient to an early season win is just playing good football in general. I know that’s generic, but the biggest key in the early going is minimizing mistakes, and if possible, forcing the opponent into making them. Most often an early season surprise comes from the favorite playing a terrible game. If WKU comes out and hangs 40 and plays some defense, they should probably win. That’s no disrespect to South Florida, but WKU clearly should build on last season, and USF needs to get back to bowl eligibility, let alone trying to upset a potential top 25 team if things go as planned for the Red and White.

Wide Receiver Depth

This has been our main concern for most of camp. Coming out of spring ball, the presumed starting three-wide set consisted of Malachi Corley, Michael Mathison and Dalvin Smith.

Well, Mathison is injured and Smith has never been a true consistent weapon, especially if you look at his stats outside of the red zone. That’s an important piece, but essentially the only proven star receiver is Corley. The only two healthy, trustworthy known quantities are Corley and Smith.

Now, WKU should have some depth come from somewhere with some nice looking pieces coming in either through development at WKU or by transfer. Let’s see how Blue Smith does, for example. At 6’4”, 210 pounds, long, and athletic, he’ll be pretty to look at, but can he catch the football? Josh Sterns is healthy and has name recognition. Will he be an important piece this season?

Show us the Offensive Line is Above Average

We’re not asking for historically good, although frankly that could happen again this season. All we’re looking for is a good O-Line. WKU lost Gunner Britton and Rusty Staats to Power 5 programs over the offseason, so taking a step back is understandable, even somewhat expected considering how incredible they were last year. But you still have several positions that should be solid, and according to some deductive reasoning and understanding the roster, there should be some depth in the trenches. Are they awful? Fine? Good? Great? Spectacular? Just be good, and all will be good.

Is Austin Reed Going to Take His Next Step?

Austin Reed is a gunslinger, right? Well, what was Brett Favre’s greatest weakness? Throwing it anywhere he felt like and assuming it would work out. Reed’s next step towards being NFL ready is continuing to improve his decision making and leadership. He is not an awful decision maker, but there were more moments in his first season than there were in the other recent WKU QB greats’ careers combined that just left you scratching your head a little bit. Or perhaps less easy to remember, those moments that almost could have been disastrous that worked out were present fairly often last year. If Reed is incredible and makes good decisions, God Bless WKU’s opponents in keeping up with that piece alone.

Let’s Have a Running Game in Week One

I wrote an entire article on this, but I think WKU’s upward potential relies on the running game. Western has four or five solid guys that they could hand the ball to and be confident they could pick up yardage, or at least that’s what it seems like.

Markese Stepp may actually jump Davion Ervin-Poindexter for the starting job, but if not, he’s a 1B option to DEP. LT Sanders is one of the more polished young prospects I’ve seen since at least Jakairi Moses or Joshua Samuel. I daresay he’s maybe a little better than those two.

Then you have Elijah Young, a Power 5 transfer that actually played some at Missouri. That’s a really, really interesting combination of really good players. And we know absolutely nothing but high school information from the fifth running back on the roster, Corey Landers. One would assume he’s a redshirt waiting to happen given four really good, experienced options in front of him. Regardless of who does what, WKU’s running game has not been sharp early in the season in years. Let’s see it be the reason WKU wins some early season games while everybody else catches up for once.

Let’s See Some Pressure Up Front

The other biggest question mark on this football team is the front six (WKU runs a multiple front nickel, aka a 3-3-5/4-2-5). WKU really just returns JaQues “Donut” Evans, who by the way looks HUGE. He’s a monster that should get 100 or so tackles and also get double digit sacks. He’s a Q Smith-level edge rusher with Joel Iyiegbuniwe’s range. But who else is going to step up? The reality is the answer could be “maybe nobody”.

Terrion Thompson is a proven playmaker, but he also needs to double his production to become a quality defensive starter. Niko Cooper has the talent and the splash to be a solid linebacker, but he needs to make a huge jump to quality starter this year. Ryan Williams played sparingly at Colorado, but he is the likely starter at defensive end. I honestly don’t think we care who does it, but we need to see some pressure up front against the Bulls.

Prediction

I’ll be honest. Coming into this, I thought this should be a blowout. And it really could be. WKU should be the clear favorite, and honestly, they should run away with it unless USF has just found lightning in a bottle with some key transfers. Unfiltered, that’s what should happen.

But it is early, and this WKU team has pressure on them. You hope they don’t feel it, but you never know how 18-to-25-year-olds (and Australian punters) will react to being not just a co-favorite or even being the outright favorite, but this team will be seen as a failure if they don’t accomplish something great this year and look good doing it. That’s real pressure.

Also, for Pete’s sake, we don’t know how good this team will really be. There are some concerns: Tight end, receiver, O-Line, DE, DT, LB, kicker, returner (without Mathison). It’s pretty unfair to just expect them to magically be incredible. But when you return 15 stars and get rid of all your most recent threats due to conference realignment, you probably should expect the pressure.

But I’ll tell you this: There’s something special about the makeup of this team.

There is at least one star at every position group. At least three people are picked all-conference in every phase of the game, including special teams. There is real depth at most positions. There is no position that looks hopeless (though, that could change). There are several players that always come out of nowhere to make a huge impact on every team, and we don’t have a clue who those players could be. WKU doesn’t need those players to show up in a big way to accomplish the mission, but they will and they will make things even better.

South Florida will be improved. They will have a better offense. They may have an improved secondary, which was horrendous last year. They’re going to have the prototypical “Florida athlete” on their team. That’s always tough to deal with. Those matchups always have the potential to be an issue, especially if you have a couple of positions with an average athlete filling out that spot.

If WKU can overcome the playmaking ability of a program that recruits to a slightly better conference in a better home state for home grown talent, the Tops will be fine on Saturday.

I’m debating about whether I should go big or go home. I sincerely think WKU will be fine in this one. I think USF is going to show some people that they have real potential, though. I predict they score four times but don’t reach 20 points. I think WKU will not be its best, either. They’ll stall on some drives that should result in a touchdown.

Don’t be surprised if this is a nailbiter, BUT…

We’ll say Western Kentucky 37-South Florida 16.