WKU Football (7-5, 5-2 C-USA) enters the final week of the regular season with a bid to the Conference USA Championship still within its reach.

UTSA will be awaiting either North Texas or WKU in the championship game, depending on what goes down Saturday.

In order to make it to the title game for a rematch of 2021’s championship, the Hilltoppers will need to defeat FAU and have North Texas to lose to Rice. 

“Hopefully keep the championship [hope] alive, we’ll see what happens down the stretch but we got to control the things we can control,” head coach Tyson Helton told the media on Monday.

WKU entered the week as sevenapoint favorites, according to ESPN, on the road against the Owls in a must-win game for the team.

The game is important for FAU as well as the Owls will be fighting for their sixth win to gain bowl eligibility.

“I know we’re about to play a highly motivated FAU team, coached really well by coach [Willie] Taggart,” Helton said. “It is a tough place to play at FAU and I know they will be ready for us and it should be a really, really good competitive game. You want these kinds of games late November. You want to be playing for something, and we have a lot to play for as do they, so it should be a really good game.”

FAU is coming off of a blowout loss at MTSU where the Owls lost 49-21. Before that, the Owls were on a bit of a hot streak, winning three of four and taking games over Rice, UAB and FIU. FAU currently sits in fourth place in the C-USA standings, right behind the third place Hilltoppers. 

The Hilltoppers, meanwhile, are coming off a tough loss at Auburn, but before that the Hilltoppers had a hot streak of their own winning four of five contests. 

“We can take away a lot from this loss from Auburn and try to fix the problems that we had, hopefully make them right at FAU,” Helton said.

If the Hilltoppers can claim victory in their contest, all eyes will be on the North Texas game at taking place later Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. CT.

The Mean Green are hosting Rice, and according to ESPN, are 13.5 point favorites. WKU Football will face off with the Owls at FAU Stadium in Boca Raton, Florida at 11 a.m. CT Saturday.