It’s been coming up on four years since Caden Veltkamp last started in a football game.

The Western Kentucky redshirt sophomore, then a senior at nearby South Warren High School, had an unforgettable night in that long-ago starting assignment, as he passed for 291 yards and three touchdowns to lead his team to a 38-26 win against Frederick Douglass in the KHSAA Class 5A state championship at Kroger Field in Lexington.

On Saturday, Veltkamp gets his first chance to lead the Western Kentucky offense onto the field as the team’s starting quarterback in a 6 p.m. matchup against Toledo at Houchens-Smith Stadium.

“I’m very excited, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time now,” Veltkamp said. “I haven’t started a game since Dec. 4 of (2021), so it’s been a long time. But at the end of the day, it’s still ball. It’s the same game. I’m excited to get out there.”

Veltkamp was elevated to the starting spot when WKU quarterback TJ Finley went down with a lower leg injury early in last Saturday’s 49-21 win at Conference USA rival Middle Tennessee. The game was scoreless at that point, and the 6-foot-6 Veltkamp came in with the Tops at the MTSU 12-yard line and got his team into the end zone three plays later with a 4-yard touchdown pass to tight end River Helms.

It was just the start of another huge relief effort from Veltkamp, who was 27-of-30 passing for 398 yards and five touchdowns – he ran for another – to earn CUSA Offensive Player of the Week honors along with being named to the Davey O’Brien Award’s Great 8 list for Week 3 and a Manning Award “Star of the Week.”

Veltkamp’s 90% completion rate was the best mark in the game by a WKU quarterback with at least 10 completions, his 17 consecutive completions to end the game was the second-longest stretch in program history and his 256.4 rating was the third-best ever in a single game by a Hilltopper quarterback.

Last Saturday’s eye-opening play by Veltkamp in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, came after his breakout performance in the Famous Toastery Bowl against Old Dominion in Charlotte, North Carolina. Veltkamp came off the bench in that game as well with the Tops down by three touchdowns. That deficit grew to 28 points before the then redshirt freshman rallied his team to a 38-25 overtime win – the fourth-largest comeback ever in a bowl – by throwing for 383 yards and five touchdowns in his first significant action in college.

“It doesn’t surprise me one bit,” WKU coach Tyson Helton said of Veltkamp’s performance. “He prepares extremely hard. He’s a very confident player. We’ve seen it in the past, obviously, at ODU with the bowl win. I talk to him all the time, as I do all the quarterbacks about (being) ready when it’s your turn and he always prepares like he’s the starter.

“We knew going into the season we had two quality quarterbacks and so when TJ went down the expectation was for him to go out there and do what he did. So I was not surprised by it, but happy for him. I think the team did a nice job of rallying around him and making him feel comfortable. We’ve got to carry that momentum now into this game. One game doesn’t make a season, so he’s going to have to go back out there again and continue to lead this team. No question in my mind, he’ll do that. We’re very comfortable with him being the quarterback and looking forward to him going back out there and playing.”

Veltkamp battled Finley, a Texas State transfer who joined the program after finishing 17th nationally in passing with 3,439 yards and 24 touchdowns in his lone season with the Bobcats after previous stops at LSU and Auburn, all through the spring and fall camp for the starting quarterback job. Finley, with much more game experience, ultimately got the opening-night start in a 63-0 loss to then-No. 5 Alabama. Veltkamp came in for the final drive of the first half and all the second half, but didn’t see action the following week in the Tops’ 31-0 home win against Eastern Kentucky.

But when needed again against MTSU, Veltkamp was ready to go. That past success, twice now if still only a limited sample size, has Veltkamp’s teammates confident the offense won’t miss a beat Saturday against the Rockets.

“It doesn’t effect a whole lot,” WKU senior tight end Trevor Borland said. “TJ goes down, but the season still goes on so the next guy has to step up and step in and take his place. And we saw him do that before last year in the bowl game, so the guys feel real confident in Caden. Yeah, he’s going to show what he can do just like he did last week.”

For his part, Veltkamp has always maintained that he prepares during the week as if he’s going to be the starter so the routine – other than increased repetitions in practice – won’t change much now that he is the likely starter for at least a couple weeks.

“You’ve got to stay prepared and for me, it kind of starts pregame,” Veltkamp said. “I listen to a play list of no-word songs – everything’s just about relaxing and staying calm so that when I get put out there and when it’s my time to play I can be relaxed and go out there and just play free.”

Facing a tough Toledo defense that handled Mississippi State on their home field 41-17 last weekend is a formidable test for a starting debut, but Veltkamp has been waiting a long time for the opportunity.

“It’s a heckuva challenge and a heckuva team to play in your first start and I’m really excited to play them,” Veltkamp said. “They have a lot of good players on defense and they don’t let up very many points. I mean, they just went down to Starkville and only gave up 17.”

WKU redshirt sophomore center Evan Wibberley said the Tops’ offensive line is determined to give Veltkamp the time to make winning plays – just like he did against ODU and once more against MTSU.

“At the end of the day, no matter who’s back there we’re going to try to block for them as long as we can and as well as we can to make sure that they just don’t get touched,” Wibberley said.{&end}