The Western Kentucky football team’s bowl hopes took a major hit Monday.

The GoDaddy Bowl in Mobile, Ala., which was thought to be WKU’s best shot at a postseason game, opted to take Arkansas State (7-5, 5-2 Sun Belt Conference) over the Hilltoppers (8-4, 4-3), despite the fact that WKU defeated Arkansas State on Saturday. With Louisiana-Lafayette going to the New Orleans Bowl, the SBC has filled bowl its bowl spots.

The four remaining Sun Belt teams that are bowl eligible – Texas State, Louisiana-Monroe, Troy and Western Kentucky – are now left to find an at-large invitation. Some bowls with conference tie-ins will need replacement teams because those conferences won’t have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all its slots.

“We’re going to keep fighting until there’s nothing left to fight for,” WKU athletic director Todd Stewart said. “Shreveport (La., site of the Independence Bowl, Dec. 31) and Detroit (Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, Dec. 26) have openings and we’ve been talking to them for quite some time and I talked to both of them today and obviously talked to them over the weekend. They know a lot about us and they know of our interest and we’ll just see where it goes. We’ll just keep working at it as long as we can.”

According to Stewart, the GoDaddy Bowl chose Arkansas State for the matchup of the Sun Belt’s second-place team against the runner-up from the Mid-American Conference. Despite beating Arkansas State 34-31 on Saturday, a game at which GoDaddy Bowl representatives were present, the Hilltoppers finished in third place behind the Red Wolves in the league standings.

“If you look at it, obviously I’m biased this year, I thought if you looked at our resume, we have a total resume,” Stewart said. “We have eight wins. With respect to Arkansas State, we have the head-to-head advantage, we have four wins over bowl-eligible teams, our head coach (Bobby Petrino) is 83-30, (senior running back) Antonio Andrews is among the all-time college football elite – those are huge selling points.

“In the case of GoDaddy, they had our marketing report Oct. 30 on how we would promote the game and that’s why I was really optimistic about that game because of the fact that we have a men’s and women’s basketball game in Mobile (at South Alabama) that week. I know we would’ve traveled very well down there and that would all be a plus. But ultimately, bowls do what bowls want to do. The GoDaddy took Arkansas State because that’s who they wanted to take.”

WKU missed the 2011 postseason after finishing 7-5 and in second place in the SBC. In 2012, the Tops went 7-5 and finished in fifth in the Sun Belt, but were selected to play against Central Michigan in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

Saturday’s win against Arkansas State was WKU’s last as a member of the Sun Belt before the athletic program begins competition in Conference USA starting July 1. Being a member on the way out has nothing to do with the WKU football team’s current predicament, Stewart said.

“That’s ludicrous,” Stewart said of the notion the SBC would be working against WKU. “The Sun Belt Conference is not working against us at all. (Sun Belt Conference commissioner) Karl Benson is an advocate for Western Kentucky, he is not trying to harm us at all. It’s just the way the bowls work.”

In the coming days, both Stewart and Benson will be working to sell WKU to potential bowl games looking to fill spots.

Destinations such as St. Petersburg, Fla., (Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl), Dallas (Heart of Dallas), Birmingham, Ala., (BBVA Compas Bowl) and New York (Pinstripe Bowl) are all in play.

“We are very, very active in talking to additional bowls for the bowl-eligible teams in the Sun Belt,” Benson said Monday. “We’re actively pursuing open spots. We are going to be surrounded by competition for the open slots. We also know that the potential openings remain in Birmingham to St. Pete to Dallas to Detroit to New York to Shreveport, we are in a conversation with all of those bowls.”

Stewart added the Hilltoppers will know a definite answer by the end of the week. Much of the discussion will center around this weekend’s conference championship games and who makes the Bowl Championship Series lineup of games.

If the cards fall a certain way and WKU gets a bit of luck, it may get the chance to play in the program’s second ever FBS bowl game. If not, the offseason will start sooner than expected.

“I think we’re certainly worthy of a bowl, but that’s the way it goes,” Stewart said. “I hope Arkansas State does well because we’re in the Sun Belt Conference and they’re in the Sun Belt Conference and I hope the conference represents itself well.”

Petrino talks coaching rumors

WKU coach Bobby Petrino is already dealing with coaching vacancy rumors, which are unlikely to end any time soon.

Monday, speculation arose that offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm might be a candidate to fill the head coaching spot at Florida Atlantic. While a source told the Daily News that Brohm hasn’t been contacted by FAU at this time, it’s probably not the only time this winter that one of Petrino’s assistants will be mentioned in connection with an open job.

“I think what you do is you understand that there is a lot of rumors out there, some of them probably don’t have any meaning at all to them and some do,” Petrino said. “Anytime our assistants have a chance to go to a situation that they feel is better for their family or for their career in the long run, I support them. I’m all behind them.”

As for Petrino himself – the former Louisville, Arkansas and Atlanta Falcons coach who is 83-30 in college competition – is also expected to have his name linked to higher-profile positions.

“I don’t deal with speculation,” is all he had to say about that Monday.

— Follow Western Kentucky University football beat reporter Chad Bishop on Twitter at twitter.com/MrChadBishop or visit bgdailynews.com.