Todd Stewart hesitated for a brief moment Monday before answering a question about the fan turnout for the Conference USA Championship Game on Saturday at Houchens-Smith Stadium.

Western Kentucky’s athletic director, who reliably offers a diplomatic response, did just that, but he answered honestly about the 13,213 in attendance for the Hilltoppers’ second consecutive time hosting its league title game.

“Yeah, I won’t lie to you, it was disappointing Saturday,” Stewart said in a news conference Monday. “I was disappointed for our players and coaches. To have the kind of success that they have had and to be going for history the way they were, you would hope that is what would fill a 20,000-seat stadium. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

Stewart made it clear this wasn’t his way of “bashing the fans” or being “critical.” He just wanted to see more.

WKU’s average attendance this season was 17,705 at Houchens-Smith Stadium, which has a capacity of 22,113.

The trajectory of attendance is heading the right way, Stewart said, but he believed the Hilltoppers’ success on the field would translate to more fans in the stands Saturday.

WKU became the first school in C-USA history to host back-to-back championship games. WKU defeated Louisiana Tech 58-44 and secured a 10-3 record. The Tops will play in the Boca Raton Bowl against Memphis on Dec. 20.

The Tops hosting the championship game wasn’t a guarantee until Nov. 26, when Louisiana Tech and WKU concluded their respective regular seasons. Louisiana Tech would have hosted if it won over Southern Miss, but the Bulldogs lost, which gave WKU the nod to host.

The win Saturday gave WKU back-to-back double-digit win seasons for the first time in school history after reaching 12 wins last year and a top 25 ranking in the final Associated Press poll.

Last year was the first opportunity for WKU to win a conference title in the FBS era. WKU hosted and defeated Southern Miss 45-28 in front of 16,823 in attendance.

Saturday’s championship game attendance was the lowest since the last home game of 2014, when WKU beat UTSA with 12,518 watching.

Stewart made his appreciation of WKU’s core fan support clear by mentioning times when they’ve traveled long distances and battled the elements on the road to watch the Hilltoppers.

“We have great fans,” Stewart said. “There’s a core group that drove 12 hours in the snow to Detroit to see our first bowl game, who sat out in the rain in Oxford, Ohio, to watch us earlier this year, that literally baked at the Vanderbilt game here this year, that went to Miami last year for the bowl game, that will go to Boca Raton this year for the bowl game.

“What we need is just more. We just need more of it.”

The issue became a topic during social media buzz Monday among players in the midst of former WKU coach Jeff Brohm’s departure to become head coach at Purdue.

In response to fans’ reaction to Brohm leaving after three years, a 30-10 record and two conference championships, senior safety Branden Leston tweeted from his account @Kodak_White, “The fans can’t be mad coach left when none of all even show up to the conference championship game.”

He followed it up with another tweet featuring a photo of the east side of Houchens-Smith Stadium taken during the game captioned, “Lol.”

Sophomore running back D’Andre Ferby shared the same photo with his tweet reading, “This a Fall Camp practice?” from his account, @Dee_Ferby

Senior left tackle Forrest Lamp reacted to the photo on Twitter as well from his account @flamp76: “For the fans that come, thank you!! Over 20k students at wku and 118k people in warren county but we can’t fill a stadium of 22k. Just sad.”

But even if WKU’s attendance Saturday was its lowest in two years, this year did see its largest single-game number. The Sept. 24 game against Vanderbilt, the first Southeastern Conference football team to visit Bowling Green, drew a record 23,674 in attendance.

The previous high (23,252) came in 2012 against Southern Miss on the heels of WKU earning its first win over Kentucky.

When trying to find the reasoning behind inconsistent attendance, Stewart offered the analysis that WKU’s football program and WKU’s football team have yet to equal the other, saying “the infrastructure and facilities were greater than what the losses were.”

WKU expanded Houchens-Smith Stadium in 2007 from a one-sided structure with the construction of the west side that features the Jack and Jackie Harbaugh Stadium Club. That addition expanded the stadium to its current capacity while the football locker room, weight room and training facilities were touted as one of the best in the Sun Belt Conference when WKU moved to the FBS level in 2009.

But on the field, WKU struggled in that transition with seasons of 2-10, 0-12 and 2-10 from 2008 to 2010. During that three-year stretch, attendance averaged at 15,125.

Former coach Willie Taggart’s second season saw the program begin the ascent that hasn’t stopped climbing.

WKU went 7-5 in 2011 and made its first bowl appearance with another seven-win season in 2012.

Taggart left for South Florida and Stewart hired Bobby Petrino to keep bringing the team to the level of the program.

Petrino’s only season peaked attendance to its highest average of 18,334 while the team went 8-4. Brohm took over after Petrino left for Louisville and WKU is playing in a third straight bowl game with one of the nation’s premier offensive showcases.

WKU’s exciting brand of football has averaged 44.3 and 45.1 points per game the last two seasons, respectively. Since 2012, the Hilltoppers have three wins against SEC teams (two against Kentucky, one at Vanderbilt). Since 2013, WKU has had six players picked in the NFL Draft (Quanterus Smith, Andrew Jackson, Jonathan Dowling, Tyler Higbee, Prince Charles Iworah and Brandon Doughty) and four are currently on active 53-man rosters who signed as undrafted free agents (Bobby Rainey, Jack Doyle, Antonio Andrews and George Fant). Before then, no Hilltopper had been drafted since 2003.

This is the point where Stewart believes WKU’s football team has surpassed the program, and fans are catching up.

“I think the team is winning at a higher level than the program,” Stewart said. “That’s probably just the normal growth of a program where then the fan support catches up again too, and then all of a sudden, we’re still winning and we have 20,000 on a consistent basis. We’ve had 20,000, but not just as much as we would like to, and hopefully that will come.

“Our students have been great, but we just need them to come to every game and not just the Thursday night games or the Saturday September and October games. We need them to come to every game. But the ones who came Saturday were great. The berm was packed, they were energetic, they stormed the field afterward, so it’s not a problem of fan support and I don’t think it’s a problem of awareness.”

With Brohm’s departure, WKU will have its fourth football coach since 2012, but each coach has put the program at a higher level each season. Stewart said WKU has climbed to the national stage and is “perceived so favorably” and there’s no margin for error in hiring the next football coach.

He wants to keep WKU’s momentum going and the fan support equally on the rise.

“I really believe if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, keep producing at the level we’ve been producing at, we’re winning and it’s a high-flying team that’s fun to watch and score a lot of points, I think that day will come when we can have both,” Stewart said, “when we’re winning at a high level and fill the stadium on a consistent basis.”

— Follow sports reporter Elliott Pratt on Twitter @EPrattBGDN or visit bgdailynews.com.