WKU Football: A Four-Minute Guide to Western Kentucky Football History
So you’re an incoming freshman and you’re about to witness your first-ever Western Kentucky Football game. Everywhere you look you see red — red towels, red shirts, red hats and you might be wondering what is the big deal with the football team? Well, that’s what I’m here for — to help you and give you a little background about the WKU Hilltoppers. Here’s a quick rundown of WKU’s Football history
WKU fielded a football team for the first time in 1908 but didn’t play actual games until 1913. LT Smith (whose stadium bears the name) took over the team in 1920 and coached them for two years before a guy named E.A. Diddle took over as coach. You better learn that name, it’s gonna be important for not just football but basketball too. Diddle led the team to four winning seasons over the next seven years and embraced the towel culture. Diddle finished with a record of 38–24 over those seven years. The next big coach to be on the sidelines for the team was Jimmy Feix. Feix coached the team to a 105–56 record over the 16 years with him in charge! A very impressive record! The Tops won 6 championships for the Ohio Valley Conference between 1970–1980. He is the winningest coach in school history.
In 1992, the program nearly lost its football program entirely but thanks to the efforts of former coach Jimmy Feix and the football team, and numerous contributions, the program was allowed to continue.
But enough about old history, let’s talk about the here and now. In 2002 the team went to the national championship for Division 1-AA (now FCS) and won a decisive victory over McNeese State 34–14 after losing to them earlier in the year. Thanks to that championship and a vote from the Board of Regents, WKU Football announced they would be moving to Division 1-A in 2006. The move would be complete in 2009 when they were able to compete in the Sun Belt Conference but didn’t fare well with the new competition at first. Under head coach David Elson the team would lose — and lose a lot in fact. From 2008–2010 the team would go 4–32. However, during Willie Taggart’s second year the Tops would go 7–5 and they would have a winning record until 2017.
After one year with Bobby Petrino at the helm, (and the Tops going 8–4 and somehow miss out on going to a bowl game) the Tops hired offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm to take over the team in 2014. The team had also moved to Conference USA. Brohm had a high flying offense and ran the team well. In fact, Brohm would lead the Tops to a 31–10 record in his three years on the Hill taking them to three bowl games with three wins. (Brohm wouldn’t coach for the Boca Raton Bowl which the Tops won 51–31 over Memphis). Brohm was the King of Bowling Green. He had taken his team to the top and they were good, winning back to back Conference USA Championships, dominating left and right against almost everyone. But before anyone had a chance to celebrate, Brohm announced that he was leaving for Purdue right before the Boca Raton Bowl.
Tops fans worried about who was going to take his place. The Tops went and signed Mike Sanford, Jr. to be the new head coach. Sanford had never been a head coach before, Sanford was known to the WKU family, as he was the Quarterbacks coach during the 2010 season. That same season the Tops went 2–10. But Sanford had a good team under him, including an NFL caliber quarterback in Mike White. But the Tops came slowly out of the gate and would limp to a 6–7 record barely squeaking into the Auto Nation Cure Bowl, which they would lose to a Georgia State team 27–17. In fact, Sanford would never post a winning record in Bowling Green finishing with a 9–16 record. Athletic Director Todd Stewart had had enough and fired Sanford at the end of the 2018 season. Sanford is now the offensive coordinator at Utah State, but it meant the Tops would have to find a new head coach.
The Tops hired Tennessee offensive Coordinator Tyson Helton just a few days after Sanford’s firing. Helton is a former quarterback who also has ties to Western Kentucky. He served under Brohm in Brohm’s first year as head coach as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. So that’s where we sit now. The Tops have limped along the last couple years after being dominant for quite a while, and a new coach sits on top.
History will continue to write itself when the Tops take the field against a Central Arkansas team that would love nothing more than to get their season started on the right path as well. So there you go. A brief summary of our beloved team. The Tops are loved whether they go 0–12 or 12–0 (but um…it would be better if they went 12–0 eh guys?)
