For each week of Western Kentucky's 2019 football season, Tyler Mansfield of InsideHilltopperSports.com will connect with a beat writer who covers the opposing team for a Q&A session.
For Game 4, Tyler chats with Evan Dudley, who covers Alabama-Birmingham for AL.com.
WKU (1-2, 1-0 Conference USA) is coming off a bye week. The Hilltoppers lost 38-21 to Louisville on Sept. 14 prior to the week off.
UAB (3-0, 0-0) ventures into Bowling Green following a 35-3 win over South Alabama last week.
Kickoff time is slated for 6 p.m. Saturday at Houchens-Smith Stadium. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
Tyler: UAB put together an outstanding season in 2018 and is off to a hot start this year. What is your overall take on where the program stands entering a big Conference USA road game at Western Kentucky?
Evan: The Blazers lost more than 30 players from last year’s conference title team and a large drop-off was expected in the offseason with the media voting UAB to finish fourth in CUSA’s west division.
That doesn’t appear to be the ceiling for the Blazers after starting the season 3-0 – albeit against some bad competition – and picking up right where they left off from last year. The losses incurred from a personnel standpoint have only give ample opportunity to a hungry and talented roster ready to uphold the standard set the last two seasons.
Tyler Johnston may have the best long-ball in the league and all three starting receivers – Myron Mitchell, Kendall Parham and Austin Watkins – have a combined 27 receptions for 615 yards and seven touchdowns.
Defensively, UAB is right back at the top of the conference in virtually every defensive category and are on pace to break the school records for sacks (48) and tackles for loss (111) that were set last season.
One area of concern has been the running game. Despite averaging 153.3 ypg, the rushing attack is lacking that extra push that it’s had the last two years. A lot of that can be chalked up to breaking in four new offensive linemen, however, pass blocking has been pristine this season with the offensive line giving up only one sack.
So, suffice to say, the Blazers and head coach Bill Clark are in the reloading business. After rebuilding the program from scratch, Clark was more than aware of the losses he would feel this season and has this program well prepared to defend their conference title. The conference slate is just getting ramped up but UAB has the potential to become the first repeat CUSA champion since the Hilltoppers in 2015-2016.
Tyler: Who are some of the key players to watch out for when the Blazers take the field Saturday in Bowling Green? Who do you expect to step up?
Evan: I already mentioned Johnston and his impressive trio of receivers but look for Markus Grossman to step up behind Parham in passing game. Grossman has only five catches this season but all have come on third downs with the redshirt junior converting four of them for first downs and coming up a yard shy on the other.
Spencer Brown, who has consecutive 1,200-yard season under his belt, is 70 yards shy of becoming UAB’s all-time leading rusher so I expect him to have an extra motor to his already bruising rushing style this week.
Defensive lineman Garrett Marino has been on a personal mission this season to inflict as much damage as possible and I wouldn’t expect that to stop anytime soon. He is a human wrecking ball that has an insatiable hunger for sacking the quarterback. Along with Marino, Kris Moll and Noah Wilder are as solid as can be at the middle linebacker positions with Wilder leading the team in tackles with 21 on the season.
Tyler: Overall, how important do you feel this game is for both teams?
Evan: There are a lot of ways to look at this game.
Considering UAB’s hot start to the season and the Hilltoppers’ performance thus far, it would be easy to say this game has no real bearing on the CUSA race. However, I’m not so sure that Western Kentucky can’t pull off the win.
Clark and Hilltoppers coach Tyson Helton are quite familiar with another from the latter’s time at UAB and this game could be closer than what some may expect. Western Kentucky has to play a clean game to upset the Blazers – almost an impossible task against a UAB defense – but do carry home field advantage with UAB having a lot of young starters that have yet to play a road conference game.
A UAB loss puts a dent in the Blazers’ chances of repeating as conference champions, as well as a loss of momentum after a 3-0 start to the season, but it wouldn’t be an indictment of the program at large.
On the other hand, a Western Kentucky win is huge for Helton in his first season and puts the Hilltoppers in the race for a division title with a 2-0 conference record and visible improvement to build upon this season.
