Tyson Helton has won plenty of games in his six seasons as Western Kentucky’s head football coach.

Helton enters Friday’s rematch at Jacksonville State in the Conference USA championship game with 48 victories to his credit leading the Hilltoppers, including four bowls during his tenure. But a CUSA championship has so far eluded Helton, who led the Tops to the 2021 title game but fell short in a 49-41 road loss to UTSA.

A CUSA title is one box Helton still very much wants to check off on his coaching resume. He’ll get his chance Friday when the Tops visit AmFirst Stadium in Jacksonville, Alabama, for a 6 p.m. CT matchup against the Gamecocks. CBSSN will broadcast the game.

“It’s one of your goals, for sure,” Helton said. “When you start every season, you want to compete for your conference championship and you want to go to bowl games, you want to go win bowl games. So it’s one of those goals. We haven’t won a championship yet, at least I haven’t here, so that would be great if we could do that.”

WKU (8-4) has momentum on its side after beating this same Jax State team 19-17 less than a week ago at Houchens-Smith Stadium. It was the first conference loss of the season for Jacksonville State (8-4), and the win secured the Tops’ spot in the CUSA title game.

The Hilltoppers leaned heavily on the leg of standout sophomore kicker Lucas Carneiro in the win last week, as Carneiro booted four field goals including a pair of 50-yarders – the last coming with just three seconds left in the game – to boost WKU to the win.

The first meeting was a tight game throughout, with points hard to come by for both teams. Whether Friday will be a repeat was a mystery Helton isn’t interested in solving in the week leading up to the game.

“I have no idea, I just want to have one more point than they do and just win the game,” Helton said. “I’m sure they will be a lot of back and forth. I’m sure they’ll make adjustments and we’ll make adjustments.”

One major potential adjustment for the Gamecocks could be at quarterback after starter Tyler Huff left last week’s game with an ankle injury and did not return. Logan Smothers led Jax State to a go-ahead touchdown drive in relief.

Jacksonville State coach Rich Rodriguez said during a Zoom call Tuesday that Huff, the team’s second-leading rusher with 1,176 yards this season, will likely be a game-time decision to play or not.

“Running the ball is a big part of his game and a big part of our offense, so we don’t want to put him out there when he can’t be himself,” Rodriguez said. “So we’ll see how the treatment goes over the next couple of days and probably wait until Friday game time.”

Helton said whether it is Huff or Smothers – or both – playing at quarterback won’t matter.

“Both quarterbacks are excellent quarterbacks and I don’t think there’s a drop-off one bit when Smothers comes into the game,” Helton said. “We played against him last year, thought he was fantastic last year. He’s an explosive player. When he takes off and runs with it, he can go. And he’s a quality passer. I think we have two quality quarterbacks, they have two quality quarterbacks. We’ll see which one plays, but both those quarterbacks for them are fantastic players.”

WKU outgained Jax State 426-328 in total yardage in the first matchup, but costly penalties and the occasional mental error held back the Tops’ offense. WKU tallied 10 penalties for 84 yards and had two fumbles, one lost, last week.

“If you want to win a championship, we better clean those up in this game,” Helton said. “We moved the ball well, we had explosive plays, but we also shot ourselves in the foot.”

Rodriguez felt much the same about his squad, which is playing for the championship in the program’s second season in CUSA after making the jump from the FCS level.

“More than anything, I told our guys we’ve just got to play a cleaner game,” Rodriguez said. “If you’re going to play a championship game, you’re going to play a good team, a team that’s really good. We know these guys are really good. We’ve just got to play a cleaner game. We’ve got to eliminate some of the key mistakes that we had during that game and then see what happens.”

HECTIC WEEK

While WKU was busy preparing for Friday’s CUSA championship, the program was also securing the next wave of Hilltoppers during the three-day early signing period that opened Wednesday. At the same time, Helton and his staff have been keeping close watch on the NCAA transfer portal that is set to open Monday.

With a bowl game still to play, the portal opening brings the real potential for roster instability as players enter and explore their options.

“This is the part of the job I love, to be honest with you,” Helton said. “I really embrace this part of the job. It’s an opportunity to really get better as a football team. I don’t know why, but a lot of people hate it, they don’t like it, all this stuff. I look at it kind of like the National Football League – every single year they’re trying to put the pieces together, right? We have some really good football players here that hopefully we can retain. But I’m a realist and think that everybody has to evaluate every single year what is my next step – both coaches and players. So, as long as you’re open and honest and have those conversations and everybody’s on the up-and-up, we’ve done well here. We’ve been able to keep some of our best players here that had great opportunities. The data shows they made the right decisions. You look at three years of third-round draft picks with the men that stayed here, that says a lot about this place and about this program.”

Just like in past years, Helton said any WKU player who enters the NCAA transfer portal is still welcome to play in the bowl game. The Tops will find out what bowl that is Sunday.

“I want to give everybody the opportunity if they want to play in the bowl game to play in the bowl game because going to bowl games is good – winning bowl games is even better,” Helton said. “And my job as the head football coach is to put the best team on the field to go win each and every single game. We’ll handle everything that comes after that. Plus, what it allows you to do is it allows you to keep those guys with you and keep the conversation going.

“I think back to a Malachi Corley, a DeAngelo Malone, a Brodric Martin – all those people were in the portal at one point in time, all those people played in the bowl game. It allowed us to continue to talk and have the conversations and they realized at the end of the day, Western Kentucky’s still the best place for me.”

HELMS OUT FOR YEAR

WKU will be without injured starting redshirt junior tight end River Helms for the rest of the season, Helton confirmed this week.

Helms, who played in seven games this season and tallied 19 catches for 228 yards and a pair of touchdowns, recently had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder.

In four seasons at WKU, the Lester, Alabama, native has 41 career receptions for 517 yards and five touchdowns.