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 6 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 solely consisted of a 20–0 win over Elizabethtown. J.L. Arthur then 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 from due to World War I. In 1920, L. T. Smith, whose name bears 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 leading them to four winning seasons 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 also a series of 9 winning seasons. In 1929, Carl "Swede" Anderson took over as head coach leading 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.