WKU Football: Tops Open at Home, Flame Out to Liberty 30–24
As autumn is approaching, it was a great scene for football at The Houch on a Saturday morning. The Liberty Flames out of the Independents…
As autumn is approaching, it was a great scene for football at The Houch on a Saturday morning. The Liberty Flames out of the Independents came prepared to play spoiler for the Hilltoppers home debut. The game also was televised on ESPNU with an early kickoff at 11 am.
In the first quarter, the Tops opened by receiving the ball. Their first drive was stalled, leading Liberty to start taking advantage. The Flames zipped down the field as Mailk Willis, the Auburn transfer at quarterback brought the score to 7–0. He capitalized on a four-yard scrambled in the end zone. On the next series of downs resulting in yet another John Haggerty punt, the Flames kept on making matters worse. This marked -3 offensive yards for Western on offense through the first two drives. Willis led Liberty down the field for a 14 play, 70-yard drives that lasted for a whopping 4:36. After a field goal, with 5:21 left in the first, Liberty was leading 10–0.
In the second quarter, Tyrell Pigrome and Gaej Walker did their part on a drive that led to a Brayden Narveson field goal, making the game 10–3 with 14:56 left in the first half.
Liberty once against scored on another QB scramble from Willis. This made the game 17–3. Eight plays and 88 yards later, The Tops were cooking up an offensive answer to Liberty. Pigrome found Mitchell Tinsley for the second week in a with a sailing touchdown pass. After the extra point from Narveson, the Tops trailed 17–10 with 6:15 left until halftime.
The next drive on offense for Liberty was frustrating. After a few offset penalties, the Flames were held to a field goal attempt. Alex Babir’s second attempt of the afternoon was unsuccessful. As the ball turned over, the Tops ran out of time to close the second half. The score was still 17–10.
In the third quarter, the Tops started playing their best drive of the afternoon. After seven plays and 77 yards, things started to pay off. Pigrome found the hybrid receiver Dalvin Smith on another beautiful throw for a touchdown. The Tops tied the game at 17 with 10:56 left in the third.
The momentum was short-lived as Liberty’s Shedro Louis broke free for a 29-yard touchdown run. The lead went back in favor of the Flames, 24–17.
In the fourth quarter, Malik Willis kept on rolling as he scored his third TD on the ground, extending the lead to 30–17 with 11:42 left. There were a few back and forth series until the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Pirgome threw his third touchdown of the day to Craig Burt Jr. Narveson’s extra point kick shortened the late-game deficit, 30–24.
With 3:04 left in the game, Liberty evaporated the clock as they kept the last drive of the game in control. As time ran out, the Tops went on to drop their third straight home opener. This dates back to 2017 after beating Eastern Kentucky. The final score was Liberty 30, WKU 24.
Here are some notes from the game:
The offense had a very slow start until the second quarter. This was still rust from the Louisville game as the unit was not clicking. As time went on and Pigrome got more comfortable, his decision making improved. For each success, there was a misstep right after. However, today was a step in the right direction compared to last week.
Mitchell Tinsley, Craig Burt Jr, and Dalvin Smith are going to be the receivers to watch out for in 2020. This will create more variety alongside Jahcour Pearson. It was also nice to see Joshua Simon get involved as he was hardly in the gameplan last week at Louisville.
The defense was not at 100% for most of the game. The run defense didn’t catch a break playing against mobile quarterbacks in consecutive weeks. Not to mention, allowing over 300 plus yards on the ground added more insult to injury.
John Haggerty is on a mission to continue being a serious candidate for the Ray Guy Award. He was solid in his punting, averaging 45.5 yards with each boot.
The Tops will spend the bye week doing some soul searching & gameplay improvement. The season is young and we’ve seen that things can only go up from today. Western will be back in action for The 100 Miles of Hate battle on the road at Middle Tennessee on October 3rd. Here are the final stats from today’s game at The Houch.
Here are your final stats from another disappointing performance
