Vic Shealy has built a football program at Houston Baptist from the ground up.

Now in its third full season as an FCS program, the Huskies are set to face an FBS team for the first time Saturday.

Shealy’s HBU squad will visit Western Kentucky for a 6 p.m. kickoff at Houchens-Smith Stadium. The game will be live-streamed on wkusports.tv.

Shealy, a veteran coach who’s worked at eight different schools since 1981, started the Huskies program in 2012. Houston Baptist played a partial schedule in ’13 and is now in its third full season as a member of the Southland Conference.

The Huskies, 9-24 all-time as a program and 2-2 so far this season, will be playing a WKU team Saturday that’s also 2-2 in its 2016 campaign. But the record is about all the two teams have in common.

The Hilltoppers played their first ever football game in 1913 – exactly 100 years before HBU played its first. WKU has turned into a consistently solid FBS program under coach Jeff Brohm, while the Huskies are trying to find their footing in a lower division.

“We’re appreciative that they gave us an opportunity to come play,” Shealy told the Daily News on Wednesday. “Just to see the high level of skills kids Western Kentucky has, it’ll be interesting to see how our kids respond.”

Shealy was a defensive assistant at Kansas from 2010-11 before taking the Houston Baptist job. It was during his time with the Jayhawks that he went to San Antonio and visited Larry Coker, who at the time was starting UTSA’s program from scratch.

The Roadrunners, now one of WKU’s fellow Conference USA schools, were still yet to play their first actual game.

“I remember Larry telling me that it just takes so long to get to that point where you’re actually ready to play,” Shealy said. “I was listening but I don’t ever think I thought I’d be in a position like that.”

But Shealy was offered the chance to do just that and took the Huskies job between the 2011 and ’12 seasons. He built a staff and started recruiting for the future.

The Huskies played the 2013 season as an independent, going 3-4. HBU joined the Southland as a full member the following season and went 2-9 in both the last two years.

Patience has been key to building the program, Shealy said.

“Just the culture of winning – when you’re not winning, how do you create an expectation of winning?” Shealy said. “And you’ve got to do it by building confidence and when you build confidence, you increase your expectations and I think we’ve taken some steps forward this year to get that done.”

The Huskies lost their season opener 56-13 at Central Arkansas but responded with their first two-game winning streak in school history, beating Texas Southern 24-20 and conference foe Abilene Christian 27-24 in overtime.

FCS power Sam Houston State halted Houston Baptist’s win streak last week with a 52-16 victory in Houston. But even with that loss, the Huskies still have as many wins through four games this year than they had in both the entire 2014 and ‘15 seasons.

Running back Terrance Peters is averaging 93.0 rushing yards per game and has run for four touchdowns. Quarterback Tony Dawson has completed 50.4 percent of his passes for 167.2 yards per game with two touchdowns and no interceptions.

“I think Houston Baptist is a young, emerging program,” Brohm said. “… They’re going to come ready to play.”

WKU is coming off an emotional 31-30 overtime loss to Vanderbilt last week. The Hilltoppers also play an important C-USA game Thursday night at Louisiana Tech.

Defensive end Kalvin Robinson said WKU has to focus on beating the Huskies rather than thinking about other games on the schedule.

“Well it’s just like any other game, any other week,” Robinson said. “We’ve seen just through college football and throughout past history that anything can happen on any given day.”

Notes

WKU is 2-2 against FCS teams since becoming a full FBS member in 2009. The Hilltoppers lost to Central Arkansas in 2009 and Indiana State in ‘11 and beat Austin Peay in ‘12 and Morgan State in ‘13. … WKU is 7-2 against teams from Texas since 2009 and has won seven straight against Lone Star State teams. The most recent win over a Texas-based squad was a 46-14 win against Rice on Sept. 1. … The Toppers are 2-6 all-time against the current lineup of the Southland Conference. This will be their first meeting with Houston Baptist … WKU wide receiver Taywan Taylor (2,960 career receiving yards) is approaching the 3,000-yard mark for his career. He would be the 172nd receiver in college football history to reach that milestone. … Nicholas Norris (2,172 career receiving yards) is catching up to former Topper Willie McNeal (2010-14, 2,181 yards) for fourth place on the school’s all-time receiving yards list.

— Follow Daily News sports reporter Brad Stephens on Twitter @BradBGDN or visit bgdailynews.com.