WKU Head Coach Willie Taggart is keeping a diary of his first season as the Toppers’ head man.

He writes in it every day, because he said he learns something new every day.

Following WKU’s 33-6 loss to North Texas on Saturday, Taggart said he learned something about making sure his team was emotionally ready for the game.

“After the game you sit back, and I feel like we were emotionally drained,” Taggart said. “You just watch North Texas, they come in with their emotional cup full whereas ours was empty and dry.”

It didn’t take long following WKU’s loss Saturday for Taggart to decide the Toppers were going to have a 6 a.m. practice on Sunday morning, but after watching the film Taggart said things weren’t as bad as they appeared Saturday.

“They gave the effort,” Taggart said. “They just didn’t make the plays they did the in the win the week before.”

Taggart said the practice was a typical practice, adding that everyone showed up and no one complained.

Junior running back Bobby Rainey said the practice wasn’t much fun, but knew the team brought it on themselves.

Taggart said he could sense an emotional letdown on the sideline Saturday.

Senior offensive lineman Mychal Patterson said he knew it was going to be a long day after the first play of the game.

“I thought things were as worse as they could be from the first drive,” Patterson said. “I knew we needed to pick it up right then. It was physical or mental, it wasn’t one thing, it was both things. I just knew we weren’t executing that first drive.”

Taggart said he wasn’t pleased with the team’s practice on Tuesday following the program’s first win in 27 games.

“We got pretty full off that ULL game,” Patterson said. “We just didn’t have the appetite needed for this game.”

Patterson said he could also sense a hangover in practice from WKU’s win last Saturday.

A few other notes:

Taggart said FAU coach Howard Schnellenberger asked him which team Taggart played for when the two saw each other at the Sun Belt Conference’s media days prior to the season.

Taggart said sophomore tight end Jack Doyle is feeling good after sitting out Saturday’s game with what Taggart called a nagging neck injury. While Doyle was in pads and ready to play, he didn’t see any game action. Taggart said they’ll see if Doyle is ready to practice today.