Western Kentucky football practiced for the third time this fall inside Houchens-Smith Stadium on Monday. The team is scheduled to practice at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

We spoke with offensive coordinator Tyson Helton afterward. A couple personnel notes: Starting center Max Halpin did not participate Monday and wide receiver Jared Dangerfield left practice early.

Tyson Helton

    Your quarterbacks (outside of starter Brandon Doughty): “Nelson Fishback and Troy Jones and, really, we got four or five really good guys. You got Troy Jones back there, you got Parker McLeod back there, you got Todd Porter back there and any one of those guys can get the job done.

“What we’re doing right now, we’re trying to get everybody reps. It’s early in fall camp, want to see what everybody can do and the guys are doing a nice job of taking care of the ball.

“Brandon’s our guy, but we got to get those other guys ready to go. Right now I wouldn’t say there’s a solid backup or anything like that. We feel comfortable any one of those guys can get it done.”

    Are they fighting for the backup spot? “They are. We’ll see what happens. As we progress – we got the pads on today – and the bullets start flying we’ll see who produces. But they’re doing a good job.”

    Hurry-up offense: “We’re going to do – I’ve always said this – whatever it takes to win. We’re not gonna go past what this offense is. This offense has been successful. We’re going to be what we are. We will be at times, we’ll do some things, pick up some tempo, but whatever our opponent gives us that’s what we’re gonna take – if it’s huddle, no-huddle, slow it down, go fast, misdirection – we’ll do a little bit of everything.”

 Feel comfortable with Doughty going hurry-up? “I feel good about whatever we ask them to do. I think all the guys know the offense, know what we want out of it. I think they’ve carried it over into spring. They had a great spring, they’ve been pretty fluid out here with it.

“There’s always going to be some mistakes that need to be corrected here or there, but I feel like as we progress through fall camp, we’ll get the kinks worked out and we’ll be ready to go.”

    See leadership? “Yeah, I do. I think there’s more of a confidence level more than anything. Those guys know what their job is and they’re feeling good about it. Those young guys, they’ve been here all summer, so even though they’re young, they kind of have an idea of what to do.

“The mentoring part is coming when we have breaks and all those kind of things when they have questions, ‘Hey, what do I do here?’ But I feel really good about our skill players, the depth that is there. Those guys are confident about what they’re doing, and if one guy goes down, we feel good about the next guy.”