It’s a rivalry renewed – at least for one season – when in-state rival Eastern Kentucky visits Houchens-Smith Stadium to take on Western Kentucky on Saturday night.

Despite not having played since 2017 and just that one time during WKU’s FBS era (since 2009), the EKU-WKU rivalry matchup long billed as the “Battle of the Bluegrass” marks the 86th time the programs have met on the football field.

Saturday’s latest installment came complete with a kerfuffle with the Colonels early in the week, when WKU took to social media to reveal Eastern Kentucky had refused to grant the Hilltoppers the option to wear white uniforms in what the school had billed as a “White Out” game promotion. Instead, the Colonels will wear white jerseys and pants, while the Tops will wear red jerseys for the 6 p.m. game, with WKU fans still encouraged to wear white. ESPN+ will have the broadcast.

“There’s a lot of history there,” WKU coach Tyson Helton said. “I’d like to think we’d have a good crowd and a good atmosphere.”

WKU (0-1) is seeking to rebound off last week’s season-opening 63-0 road loss to No. 5 Alabama. EKU (0-1) also got routed with a 56-7 loss at Mississippi State on Saturday, leaving both schools with lopsided losses to SEC programs.

Eastern Kentucky coach Walt Wells, who spent a decade as an assistant coach with the Hilltoppers, expects a motivated opponent and expects his team to match that intensity in the FCS-level Colonels’ second straight game against an FBS opponent.

“Each game is a new game, and they’ve got to give us the best version of themselves this week or Western’s going to come out and do some things to us,” Wells said. “They’re not happy – they’re not sitting down there like, ‘Oh, OK, well we played Alabama. Ya’ll played Mississippi State.’ They’re upset with their performance, too, so they’re going to go through all those things in practice this week just like we are. Our guys better understand that and be ready to go.”

Wells, who coached at WKU from 2002-12 and was offensive coordinator during his final four seasons, has seen the longstanding rivalry game from both sides and expects another typical intense atmosphere at Houchens-Smith Stadium.

“I still hope the rivalry is something that’s important to the fans because – I don’t mean this bad – we don’t have a rivalry with Kentucky or Louisville,” Wells said. “They don’t have a rivalry with Kentucky or Louisville. It might as well be us two still going at it.

“ … I just tried to let (my players) know that this is what it might be like. It might not be like our typical go to a G5 stadium where it’s half full, maybe a fourth full and play. It might be packed, and it might be loud, and we might see some hatred. And that’s a good thing.”

The Colonels had slightly more success than WKU their first time out against Mississippi State. EKU quarterback Matt Morrissey threw for 169 yards and a touchdown on 22 of 38 passing, while running back Joshua Carter gained 75 rushing yards on 19 carries. EKU ranked as the eighth-best offense in FCS last season with 437.4 yards of total offense per game in 2023.

Against Mississippi State, EKU tallied 295 yards of total offense but surrendered 450 yards.

The Tops managed just 145 yards of total offense in the debut of new starting quarterback TJ Finley, who moved the offense at times but also threw a pair of interceptions before Caden Veltkamp took over late in the first half with the game already out of reach. It was a rough start for the Tops’ reliably high-octane offense since Helton took charge of the program in 2019.

WKU first-year offensive coordinator Will Friend did see some good plays along with some bad last week against the Crimson Tide.

“We are nowhere near where we want to be yet,” Friend said. “I think we have the ability to have a good football team. We just have to improve. You’ve got to go from Week 1 to Week 2 and you want to improve. The goal of this team all year long is to get better every week, and both rushing and throwing the football we have to be better. We have to be able to do both.”

The Tops’ defense gave up big plays and massive yardage against Alabama – the Tide piled up 600 yards of total offense.

EKU pushed Kentucky before falling 28-17 in its second game of the 2023 season after a similar lopsided opening loss at Cincinnati, and hopes that second-week improvement continues against WKU on Saturday.

While the rivalry game isn’t yet on the Tops’ future schedule, Helton said he “thinks it’s great” to face a longtime in-state rival.

“I think it ought to be a good matchup,” Helton said. “They’re a quality football team. We both took one on the chin last week against two really good SEC opponents, and so both of us will be hungry to go out there and try to get a win. So it should make for a really good game.”

NEW TURFSaturday’s game between WKU and EKU will be the first for the Hilltoppers on the new turf at Houchens-Smith Stadium. The brand new, state-of-the-art FieldTurf Vertex CORE surface on Feix Field was placed this spring.

The newest addition to the field design is Big Red, WKU’s mascot, on each 25-yard line opposite the Conference USA logo. The end zones remain black, with white “Hilltoppers” block text outlined in red instead of the “WKU” red block text outlined in white on the most recent surface, which was installed before the 2014 season.

The WKU red towel primary logo remains at midfield, while the “Feix Field” text moves to each sideline on the new turf.