So, here we are again. WKU football just got embarrassed against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent, one that the Hilltoppers should have handled easily if we were to believe what first-year head coach Tyson Helton had been saying in the weeks leading up to the game.

While losing to an FCS team is certainly something that the program shouldn’t be doing, it wouldn’t be as concerning to WKU fans if the team hadn’t looked so flat in the late minutes. The offense didn’t, as Helton had promised throughout the offseason, come out letting the ball fly.

Nobody in Houchens-Smith Stadium on Thursday night was fooled into thinking that the year was 2015 or 2016 and something like the Mike White-to-Taywan Taylor connection was back in action. Instead, redshirt junior Steven Duncan, who recently beat out Arkansas transfer Ty Storey for the job, started at quarterback.

While Duncan wasn’t terrible the entire game, he had moments where he looked dreadful. Both of his interceptions could have been avoided and he had several other throws that, to put it politely, could have been better.

That’s not the performance you need from a quarterback who seems purpose-built for the offense that Helton supposedly wants to put into place.

However, Duncan can’t be made to shoulder the entire blame for Thursday’s debacle. The creativity that Helton was supposedly going to bring the offense was limited to a few trick plays, none of which worked particularly well.

When WKU needed to come up big, make a few stops and maintain a few drives to take down a powder-puff opponent the program paid over $300,000 to be its punching bag for the evening, they were unable to do it — especially during an awful fourth quarter.