The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers football program is a college football team that represents Western Kentucky University. The team competes at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level and represents the university as a member of Conference USA in the Eastern division. The 2002 team was the FCS national champion. The program has 13 conference championships (1 SIAA, 9 OVC, 1 Gateway, 2 Conference USA) and 7 FBS-level bowl game victories. The Hilltoppers play their home games at Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium in Bowling Green, Kentucky and the team's head football coach is Tyson Helton.
History
Early history (1908–1967)
Western Kentucky first fielded a football team in 1908 but did not start playing sanctioned games until the 1913 season. M.A. Leiper and Roy Manchester are the first noted coaches for WKU. The two men teamed up to coach the Hilltoppers for their inaugural season, which consisted only of a 20–0 win over Elizabethtown. J.L. Arthur took over the program for three years from 1914 to 1916, coaching a total of 14 games, 6 of which were against Eastern Kentucky.
From 1917 to 1919, the Hilltoppers didn't compete in football due to World War I. In 1920, L. T. Smith, namesake of the Hilltoppers' home stadium, took the reins and coached the team for two seasons. From 1922 to 1928, the Hilltoppers saw their first success as Coach E.A. Diddle took over the football program for seven seasons, winning four while also coaching the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers basketball team. Diddle, who was a dual-athlete himself, encouraged his players to participate in multiple sports so they could stay in shape. His first team set a school record for wins that would stand for 41 years and his last team claimed to be state champions. When he retired from coaching football in 1928, Diddle posted a record of 38–24–2. The Hilltoppers outscored opponents 171–7 in Diddle's final year of coaching the program. After Diddle left the football program to focus on coaching basketball, WKU football went through a series of instability in coaching, but still successfully won 9 seasons.
In 1929, Carl "Swede" Anderson took over as head coach. Anderson led the Hilltoppers to a 7–3 record before leaving to take the head coach job over the Kansas State freshman football team. In 1934, Carl Anderson returned for a second stint with the Hilltoppers where he served as head coach through the 1937 season posting a 24–9–3 record with wins over EKU in all four seasons. The Hilltoppers were very successful in this era posting an outstanding a 60–20–4 record. After Anderson left the hill once again, this time to be an assistant coach at Indiana, the Hilltoppers selected Gander Terry to lead the program. In their four seasons under Terry, the Hilltoppers went 25–9–3 beating rivals Middle Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky in every game they played. Terry left the program after the 1941 season following a 4–5–1 record, the Hilltopper's first losing season since 1925. Arnold Winkenhofer took over in 1942 coaching the Toppers for one season before the program was stopped from 1943 to 1945 due to World War II. In 1946, Jesse Thomas returned to the Hill for his second stint as head coach. Thomas only stuck around WKU two more seasons with much less success than his first go around posting a 5–10–2 record.
Jack Clayton provided some much-needed stability to the WKU football program where he served as head coach for 9 seasons. In 1949, after losing the first two games to start the season, Clayton started a freshman quarterback by the name of Jimmy Feix winning 5 of the last 7 games that season. By 1952, with Feix now in his senior year, Clayton coached WKU to their first Ohio Valley Conference championship, tied the school record for wins, and the school's first bowl appearance, winning 34–19 over Arkansas State in the Refrigerator Bowl, finishing the season 9–1. Feix became the first WKU football athlete ever to earn All-America honors after posting the highest pass completion percentage in the nation (.612). Under Clayton, the Hilltoppers posted a record of 50–33–2 before he left to coach at Northwestern Louisiana State College, his alma mater. Nick Denes, who was also a Western Kentucky Hilltoppers baseball head coach and for whom Nick Denes Field is named, coached WKU football for 11 seasons. In his time on the Hill, Denes compiled a 57–39–7 record for a .587 winning percentage. In 1963, Denes led the Hilltoppers to their second bowl game victory, defeating Coast Guard 27–0 in the Tangerine Bowl, a season where the Hilltoppers went 10–0–1 and set a new school record for wins. Denes retired after the 1967 season following a 42–19 win over Murray State.
Jimmy Feix (1968–1983) After serving under Nick Denes as an assistant coach for all 11 seasons, Jimmy Feix was promoted to head coach. In his 16 seasons at the helm, Feix compiled an impressive 105–56–6 record (.6488). His 14 teams that competed in the Ohio Valley Conference went 67–28–2 (.701) in conference play. The Hilltoppers won six Ohio Valley Conference championships between 1970 and 1980. Feix became the most successful and longest-tenured coach in Western Kentucky football history while leading the Hilltoppers in a transition from NCAA Division II to NCAA Division I-AA (now FCS). In 1973, the Hilltoppers went undefeated in the regular season before competing in the first-year NCAA Division II championship playoffs. They made it to the championship game against Louisiana Tech coming up just short and finishing the season 12–1, setting a new school record for wins that still stands. In 1975, the Hilltoppers made the playoff field again advancing to the title game for the second time, but once again having to settle for runner-up honors finishing their season with an 11–2 record. Feix was named OVC Coach of the Year in 1973, 1978 and 1980 and remains the winningest football coach in WKU history. Feix coached 16 athletes who followed him on the list of WKU football All-Americans.
Dave Roberts (1983–1988) Feix retired as head coach moving to work in Alumni Affairs for two years before taking over as director of athletics in 1986. In his vacancy, the Hilltoppers hired former Vanderbilt assistant Dave Roberts to be the head coach with hopes of continuing what Feix started. Roberts struggled through his first three seasons posting a record 10–22–1 before turning things around. In 1987 and 1988 Roberts took the Hilltoppers to the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs coming up short to rival EKU both years. After the 1988 season, Roberts left Western Kentucky for the Northeast Louisiana head coaching job. Though going 16–8 in his last two season, Roberts left with a 26–30–1 record becoming the first Hilltopper coach to leave with a losing record in over 60 years.
Jack Harbaugh (1989–2002) Jack Harbaugh served as the Hilltoppers head football coach for 14 seasons, compiling a 91–68 record, three 10+ win seasons, two conference championships (OVC 2000, Gateway 2002) and the 2002 Division I-AA National Championship. Harbaugh took the Hilltopper football program from the depths of despair in the early 1990s to its best stretch since the legendary Jimmy Feix coached on the Hill. In 1992, WKU was on the verge of losing its football program after a state-mandated $6.1 million budget cut. Harbaugh was notified of the plans to shut down the program just before spring practice was about to begin. Having already made up his mind that he was not going to quit, he talked with his players left them a choice: accept defeat and leave, or fight to stay. Now known as the 1992 "Save the Program" team, every player decided to stay, fight, and work to save WKU football. While Harbaugh and the team did their part, former WKU quarterback, coach and athletics director at the time, Jimmy Feix, started an emergency fundraising campaign writing letters and making calls to former WKU players, urging them to buy season tickets. All the efforts paid off and on April 30, 1992, the WKU Board of Regents voted to allow football to stay but with a reduced budget. The Hilltoppers finished the 1992 season with a losing record of 4–6. As the budget remained tight over the next few years WKU managed an 8–3 record in 1993 before having back-to-back losing seasons.
No one ever doubted Harbaugh's ability to coach but he clearly needed better players. In 1994, with unwavering faith in their father, both of his sons, Jim Harbaugh and John Harbaugh, decided to help however they could. While still playing in the NFL, Jim joined the WKU football coaching staff as an NCAA-certified unpaid assistant which allowed him to recruit. John, on the other hand, was a coach at Cincinnati and could rely on his scouting services, deep contacts, and endless high school game footage to help out. Jim set out and started contacting recruits, his first being Willie Taggart, an All-American and four-year starter at quarterback for WKU. Jim also recruited future NFL players Rod Smart and Mel Mitchell to WKU as well as 17 players on the 2002 national championship team. The Hilltoppers went 7–4 in 1996 and returned to the NCAA Playoffs in 1997 behind the arm and legs of quarterback Willie Taggart, which started a long series of winning seasons. Jack and his wife Jackie are credited with saving the program which led to being honored in 2012 with naming rights to the stadium club at L. T. Smith Stadium. This was 20 years after the 1992 "Save the Program" season and 10 years after the 2002 championship season.
David Elson (2003–2009)
After serving on Harbaugh's coaching staff for seven seasons, David Elson was promoted to head coach where he led the Hilltoppers for seven seasons. Elson's first four seasons as head coach were at the Division I-AA level (now FCS) where he picked up where Harbaugh left and posted four straight winning seasons, a record of 30–17, and two playoff berths. On November 2, 2006, prior to the end of the season, WKU's board of regents voted in favor of moving from NCAA Division I-AA to NCAA Division I-A football (now FBS) and would be joining the Sun Belt Conference in all sports by 2009. The move allowed WKU to add 22 scholarships by 2009 and increase the overall football budget by an estimated $2.5 million by the time the transition was complete.