WKU Football: Tops Stunned in Home Opener vs FCS Maine, 31–28

Yes, you read that right. Despite a tremendous first quarter that looked like 2015–2016 WKU football, the rest of the three quarters were…

Yes, you read that right. Despite a tremendous first quarter that looked like 2015–2016 WKU football, the rest of the three quarters were not pretty as the Tops lost their home opener 31–28.

Drew Eckels completed 23 of his 41 pass attempts for 347 yards and three touchdowns but had a fumble that led to a Black Bear touchdown and was unable to capitalize on several critical possessions.

So what happened?

The first quarter was about as good of a start WKU could get. The first play of the game was a Lucky Jacksontouchdown catch in the first 18 seconds of the game.

Right after that, Maine took over offense and Devon Key took a pick-six to the house, making it 14–0 and things were looking as you would expect to see from a school that’s had a great football program the past few years.

WKU lead 21–0 at the end of the first.

The second quarter however, was a totally different story. WKU didn’t score a single point and Maine came back and cut the defect to 21–14. Maine was able to make some big plays on offense and on defense they kept bringing the pressure on Eckels causing him to be hurried and make bad decisions.

Eckels had a fumble that was returned for a touchdown that was overturned because his arm was going forward but in the third quarter, the defense still came back and did make him fumble and they still took it to the house to lead 28–21.

Through all of this, Eckels was pressured a lot and at times, looked like a deer in headlights in the pocket. And the run game still isn’t a viable option for WKU at this point with LaFrance leading the team tonight with 33 yards on seven attempts. The offense was as stagnant as it could be from the second quarter until the fourth.

They had some nice possessions that looked promising but ended up being a three and out or a boneheaded fourth down attempt that didn’t work.

The fourth quarter was do-or-die for the Tops and despite a nice 75-yard touchdown pass to LaFrance, Eckels and the offense weren’t able to come back and score when they needed to as Maine successfully upset the Tops 31–28 and drained the hope of almost every WKU fan in the process.

This loss is about as bad as you can get, to be perfectly honest. A team that was playing for conference championships a few seasons ago is now incapable of winning against an FCS school on their home turf. Of course, we will have more in-depth analysis of why this has been a disaster very soon, but to put it plainly, Mike Sanford hasn’t done a good job this year.

I was hoping he would prove us wrong at this point in the year but a home loss to an FCS team is inexcusable for any program that claims to be chasing conference championships. Period.

This game against Maine is supposed to be an “easy win” game for the team to get their offense going but instead, the Tops will walk out of the Houch with their tails tucked between their legs and Sanford going to the preverbal coaching doghouse after this one.