SAN ANTONIO – Tyson Helton isn’t looking back at Western Kentucky’s run last year to the Conference USA championship game after losing its league opener to UTSA, despite the fact the Hilltoppers are in a similar position now.

WKU reeled off seven straight wins in conference play to get a rematch with the Roadrunners for the C-USA title in 2021, and after Saturday’s 31-28 loss at the Alamodome in San Antonio, the Hilltoppers could need a similar run this fall.

“Every season’s a new season, every game’s a different game,” Helton said. “I think the conference is even stronger this year. Everybody’s playing good football. It’s back to the way I know this conference to be – any given day anybody beats anybody in this conference. Last year was last year. For us to have an opportunity, we have to say, ‘Hey, we want to be in the championship game, we’ve got to go stack up wins against conference opponents.’ It starts with Middle Tennessee.”

Last year’s regular-season loss to UTSA came in Bowling Green, 52-46. The Hilltoppers plowed through the rest of its regular-season slate to claim an East Division title and get a rematch with the Roadrunners, which they lost 49-41 at the Alamodome.

WKU blew out FIU 73-0 on Sept. 24 to open conference play this fall, but is back to .500 – both overall and in C-USA competition – after Saturday.

With the UTSA game again coming early, the Hilltoppers will now try to make a run through the rest of its league schedule. That starts this week with a trip to Middle Tennessee, before returning home to face UAB and North Texas, traveling to Charlotte and hosting Rice. WKU will then have a Nov. 19 nonconference game at Auburn before closing the regular season with a trip to FAU.

There are four unbeaten teams in C-USA play – UTSA and North Texas are 2-0, while Rice and Louisiana Tech are 1-0 – and three without a win – FIU is 0-1 and Middle Tennessee and Charlotte are both 0-2. UAB, WKU and FAU all sit at 1-1 in league play, while UTEP is 1-2 after falling at Louisiana Tech on Saturday.

Like its other two losses this season – a 33-30 overtime defeat at Indiana and a 34-27 loss to Troy at Houchens-Smith Stadium – WKU felt like it played well enough to win Saturday, but didn’t.

“Obviously we know how good they are, but we felt like we probably should’ve came out of here with another win. At the end of the day you can say you should’ve left with a win all you want, but you didn’t leave with a win,” WKU quarterback Austin Reed said. “It’s good to see we can compete against these guys. Obviously at the end of the year we would like to be here playing against these guys because they’re earned the right to play at home. For us, the goal is to go win the rest of these games and get a shot at these guys again so we can try to make it happen then.”

Helton said after Saturday’s loss he “no question” thought his defense played well enough to win, limiting UTSA’s offense to roughly a touchdown below its scoring average and well below what it put up last season.

WKU’s offense moved the ball well Saturday, racking up 481 yards, but was unable to convert it to enough points. Reed threw for 373 yards and two touchdowns on 35-of-49 passing without an interception, and added 43 yards and a score on 11 carries. The Hilltoppers didn’t fumble the ball away, but went just 1-for-4 on fourth downs, including a fourth-and-7 at the UTSA 34 with under four minutes to play down 31-28. WKU, playing “ultra aggressive – “You’re going to have to do that if you’re going to beat UTSA at home,” Helton said – also couldn’t convert fourth-and-15 and fourth-and-14 opportunities on back-to-back possessions in the third quarter down 10.

“Coach Helton’s big on giving us that chance on fourth down to keep the offense out there and at the end of the day we didn’t get the first down we needed when he needed us to,” Reed said. “At the end of the day we’ve just got to get the ball in the end zone. We’ve got to find a way to do that because that’s two straight games where we scored 28 or less, so we’ve got to find a way to get back to scoring a lot of points.”

WKU’s loss to Troy snapped a streak of 18 straight games where the Hilltoppers scored at least 30 points. WKU still has the top scoring offense in C-USA after Saturday’s loss at 40.8 points per game, as well as the second-best scoring defense at 23.7 points allowed per game.

Helton is confident his team can return to the scoring people have become accustomed to the last two seasons moving forward, however.

Middle Tennessee is in the middle of the pack in C-USA, allowing 31 points per game after getting blown out 41-14 by UAB this weekend and falling 45-30 to UTSA the week prior. The Blazers – who WKU didn’t play last year and will host following the game against the Blue Raiders – have the top scoring defense in C-USA at 16.8 points allowed per game.

“I’m not worried about that,” Helton said. “The past two football teams we’ve played are really, really good defenses. Troy limited our possessions like I thought they might. They’re a good defense and same thing with UTSA – really good defense. I’m not concerned about that. I just want, at the end of the day, to get the W. We were close tonight. We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board and get ready for Middle Tennessee.”{&end}