The Western Kentucky football team kept winning to close the regular season.

The Hilltoppers played their best all-around game of the fall and beat Charlotte 37-19 at Jerry Richardson Stadium on Sunday to finish the regular season with a third straight win, improving to 5-6 overall and 4-3 in Conference USA play.

“Just a great way to finish off the season with a really good win. I know our guys were excited to finish out that way. Really, really proud of our team and what they did today,” WKU head coach Tyson Helton said. “Hopefully moving forward we’ll maybe get another game. Maybe good things will happen. We’ll see.”

Western Kentucky’s offense, which had struggled through much of the season, came out of the gates firing in a game that had been rescheduled, canceled and then rescheduled again. The Hilltoppers finished with 243 yards of offense in the first half and 436 in the game – 218 rushing and 218 passing.

Tyrrell Pigrome threw for 218 yards and a touchdown on 18 of 27 passing and added 60 yards on eight rushing attempts. He finished the regular season without throwing an interception. Gaej Walker rushed for 98 yards on 19 attempts, and freshman Dakota Thomas led WKU receivers with 78 yards on five receptions.

“I felt like we were able to make explosive plays,” Helton said. “You hear me say all the time ‘create explosive plays,’ and we were able to do that today several times. We were able to throw it down the field and make explosive plays, some great runs by the running backs, staying in front of the chains.”

The Hilltoppers went 74 yards on their first possession, but were stood up at the goal line on fourth down. In its next possession, WKU took the lead on a 33-yard field goal from Brayden Narveson – the first of three on the day for the redshirt sophomore.

In the second quarter, the Hilltoppers created opportunities and took advantage, after coming off a second half against FIU in their last game that featured two defensive scores. Facing fourth-and-17 from their own 34, Charlotte (2-4 overall, 2-2 C-USA) attempted a punt, but the snap was botched and A.J. Brathwaite Jr. recovered the ball for a touchdown.

In the closing minute of the half, WKU had driven to the Charlotte 2, but running back Gaej Walker’s attempt for the end zone resulted in a fumble. Offensive lineman Jordan Meredith recovered and WKU took a 17-0 lead into the break.

WKU allowed just 34 total yards in the first half.

“We’ve been harping on starting fast because in the beginning of the season we’d start the game slow, the first half slow and come out the second half swinging,” WKU defensive back Trae Meadows said. “We just wanted to harp on these past three weeks that we’ve been playing some phenomenal defense, so we were just steady harping on playing fast, starting fast and then it will carry over to the offense.”

Charlotte scored to open the second half on a 5-yard pass from Chris Reynolds to Micaleous Elder, but WKU responded with 13 unanswered points. Mitchell Tinsley caught a 3-yard touchdown pass – set up by a 37-yard reception from Thomas – that was sandwiched between possessions that ended in Narveson field goals – the first a 46-yarder and the second a 49-yarder.

“Explosive plays, it gets the team jumping,” Thomas said. “If you make a big play, the energy is going to come through. So I just made that play and everybody followed through. Everybody eats.”

The 49ers scored with 5:01 left on a 30-yard pass from Reynolds to Cameron Dollar to make it 30-13, but WKU answered with a 5-yard scoring run from C.J. Jones to cap off a six-play, 51-yard drive. Elder caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Dom Shoffner in the final minute to close out the scoring in the Hilltoppers’ 37-19 victory.

Reynolds finished with 205 yards and two touchdowns on 14 of 34 passing, with eight receptions for 111 yards going to Victor Tucker, and Tre Harbison had 80 yards on 16 rushing attempts. Charlotte is scheduled to play at Marshall on Friday in a game that was announced by C-USA on Saturday.

WKU has no more games remaining on its regular-season schedule, and will now wait to see if it will be invited to a bowl game. The NCAA waived bowl requirements for the 2020 season.{&end}