WKU Football will head to Jacksonville State Friday to take on the Gamecocks in the Conference USA Championship.
“Very excited to go to the Conference USA championship to play an excellent football team in Jacksonville State,” Head Coach Tyson Helton said. “It’s been a long road to get there. Very proud of our football team and what they’ve been able to accomplish to get to this part. Now we need to go win it, and it’ll be a great challenge for us, but we’re excited and ready for that opportunity.”
The Hilltoppers saved their chances at a C-USA title last week by defeating JSU at home. WKU ended a two-game losing streak with a 19-17 victory to punch their ticket to the C-USA Championship.
Friday will be the Hilltopper’s fourth appearance in the Conference-USA Championship game since joining the league.
The Hilltoppers last played for the C-USA title in 2021, when they were defeated by UTSA 49-41. Their last victory came in 2016.
WKU finished the regular season 6-2 in conference play while handing the Gamecocks their only conference loss in the last game of the season.
The C-USA Championship meeting will mark the eighth all-time between WKU and JSU. WKU leads the series 5-2 after defeating the Gamecocks 19-17 last week.
Facing the same team back-to-back weeks will present WKU with a unique test.
“It’s something where you know each other, and so you’ve always got to have some extra bullets in the chamber,” Helton said. “There’s things everybody knows you do. what you do right, there’s that part. Then you make adjustments off of what you saw last time, and then you add some new things. That’s just the game that we play. And so I expect both teams to make adjustments.”
WKU’s defense will be looking for another strong performance Friday after holding two of their last three opponents to under 20 points.
On the offensive side of the ball, things began to trend up last Saturday, despite only scoring 19. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Caden Veltkamp had over 300 yards through the air and senior Elijah Young had over 90 yards on the ground.
The Hilltoppers and Gamecocks will face off on CBSSN at 6 p.m.
Sports Reporter Camden Bush can be reached at [email protected].
