The Hilltoppers (8-3, 5-2 Gateway Football Conference) received an at-large berth into the field of 16 teams Sunday, and will host Jacksonville State (8-3, 7-1 OVC) at 2:30 p.m. (CST) Saturday at L.T. Smith Stadium/Jimmy Feix Field. WKU opened the 2002 playoffs with a home game against OVC champion Murray State last fall.
It’s the fourth straight season that Western has qualified for the postseason, the first time that has occurred in school history.
“We are excited to be in the playoff field. One thing we learned last year is that once you get in, there is a lot of parity in NCAA Division I-AA football and anyone can win the championship,” said first-year head coach David Elson. “At this point, you take it one game at a time — we are going to focus all of our efforts on Jacksonville State this week.”
The playoff game will be followed on the Western campus by men’s basketball’s home opener against Mississippi State at 7 p.m. at E.A. Diddle Arena. The Diddle lot will be reserved for Hilltopper Athletic Foundation members with basketball parking passes, however the parking structure and several thousand additional surface parking spots in close proximity to Smith Stadium will be available for the majority of the parking traffic for the football game.
The WKU Athletic Ticket Office will have extended hours from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, and will also be open Wednesday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tickets go on sale at the stadium gates on game day at 11 a.m. Season ticket holders have until 2 p.m. Tuesday to call in order to reserve their same seats. Tickets can be purchased by either calling the ticket office (270-745-5222 or 1-800-5-BIG-RED) or visiting the school’s official athletic web site, www.wkusports.com — only general admission seats are currently available on-line, while reserved seats will be made available on the web Wednesday at 8 a.m.
The ticket office will start accepting orders at 9 a.m. Monday.
Dormitories on the Western campus will open a day early at 2 p.m. Saturday in order to enable students to attend both contests.
This year’s playoffs marks the first time in history that four teams from the same league have advanced to the postseason. In addition to WKU, Gateway Conference members Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois and Western Illinois also qualified.
Six of the eight automatic berths that were handed out are in the Hilltoppers’ half of the bracket. The winner of the WKU-JSU contest will take on the Wofford-North Carolina A&T winner in the quarterfinals — both teams won their league championships, with Wofford earning the third seed in the playoffs. Second-seeded Delaware, UNI and Montana State also claimed automatic berths with conference titles.
