Late WKU Rally Falls Just Short as Hilltoppers Drop 38-35 Decision at Army

Saturday, September 11

West Point, NY

10:30 AM CT

Western Kentucky University

1-1

Army

2-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

WKU

Army

Photo by: Steve Roberts, WKU Athletics

Late WKU Rally Falls Just Short as Hilltoppers Drop 38-35 Decision at Army

9/11/2021 3:45:00 PM | Football

Box Score

Postgame Interviews: HC Helton | WR Sterns & QB Zappe | DL's Darvin & Pitts

BOWLING GREEN, Ky (BF) — Trailing by 21 points in the fourth quarter, WKU Football put forth a feverous comeback attempt, but it came up short in the Hilltoppers' 38-35 defeat at Army on Saturday. With the loss, WKU falls to 1-1 on the season and will enter the team's bye week.

Quarterback Bailey Zappe followed up his incredible debut with another stat-stuffing performance, completing 28-of-40 passes (70%) for 435 yards and three touchdowns compared to only one interception.

The 435 passing yards were the most allowed by an Army defense to a single quarterback since at least 2000 (as far back as records go on www.Sports-Reference.com). The previous high was by Tulane's Lester Ricard, who threw for 409 yards against the Black Knights on Oct. 28, 2006.

Zappe also rushed eight times for seven net yards (22 before negative sack yards), including a 10-yard touchdown scamper at the end of the first half.

After a 0-0 score after the first quarter, Army opened the scoring with a 24-yard touchdown run to begin the second frame. The Black Knights followed with a 40-yard touchdown pass only three minutes later and WKU trailed 14-0.

But back came the Hilltoppers, as Zappe hit wide receiver Jerreth Sterns for a 72-yard touchdown – the longest reception of his career, smashing his previous high of 47 yards at Houston Baptist – to put WKU on the board.

Army responded with a one-yard touchdown run after a 16-play, 75-yard drive that took 8:33 off the clock. With only 2:07 left in the first half, Zappe orchestrated a 6-play, 75-yard drive that took only 97 seconds, culminating with his touchdown rush that brought the Hilltoppers within 21-14 at halftime.

But the Black Knights had two more long scoring drives to begin the second half, and the hosts led 35-14 with only 10:31 remaining in the contest.

Zappe then started leading WKU on a monstrous comeback. Back-to-back touchdown passes – a 21-yarder to Mitchell Tinsley and a 14-yarder to Sterns – got the Hilltoppers within 35-28 at the five-minute mark.

But Army recovered an onside kick and drove 30 yards to get in position to kick a 31-yard field goal to push the lead to 10 points, 38-28, with 112 seconds left. WKU got a three-yard touchdown run with 22 seconds remaining by Adam Cofield on the next drive to reach the final of 38-25, as the Black Knights recovered another onside kick to ice it.

Postgame Quotes

Head coach Tyson Helton
On the unique difficulties Army's offense presents:
"Well, they're a good football team. They do a great job with their offensive scheme and it's tough to defend. It was hard to stop them defensively. When you try to answer one thing, they give you something else to worry about. I was proud of our defense – they needed to get a couple big stops there at the end – and we were able to do that. It gave us a chance. I told the defense 'at the end of the day it's team football, just give us an opportunity to make a play' and our defense did that today. Now, would we like to stop them better and give up less points and all that? Yeah. So, a lot of tough ball played today. But, I am proud of this football team – how they battle and how they fight. It's tough to get down like they did and be able to fight back and keep competing."
On how WKU's offense executed its gameplan:
"I was really happy with the gameplan. We knew early on that they were going to have a hard time covering us, so we took advantage of that. It's like I said, you have to take what they give you. They were loading the box a little bit so we took advantage of the pass. Bailey [Zappe] did a great job of seeing guys open. So, a lot of good things in the passing game. I think the two biggest things were the first two drives. We throw an interception there, and that's tough when every possession is precious. Then we come back and have two false start penalties on the next drive when we're across the 50 yard line. So, those things hurt you when you're playing a good Army team. Wish we could've not had that happen and it might've been a different game."

Graduate senior quarterback Bailey Zappe
On how he feels the offense is operating so far this season:
"It's nice to see, especially this early in the season being the first year we are all playing as a group with different kinds of guys and different play styles being able to see us score 59 points then 35 points its awesome to see that. Defense today played their butts off, that is an offense that is good, and we put them in bad situations, I put them in a bad situation throwing the pick on the very first drive and they helped me out and got a turnover to cancel it out… Moving on we gotta continue to execute, play like we play, and if we do that we are going to continue to light up the scoreboard like we have been."
On how he felt the offense did compared to the first game:
"Like I said a little while ago, don't shoot ourselves in the foot. With penalties, turnovers I mean that is all stuff that if it doesn't happen our drives end in scoring; either kicking a field goal or scoring a touchdown and we just can't do that stuff and we played the number one run defense and pass defense in the country last year, we played the number one defense in the country, and to be able to do what we did… Technically we didn't come out with the win but we did have some good things in there where we can also improve on in the next two weeks."

Junior wide receiver Jerreth Sterns
On his connection with Zappe and the offense's production:
"It's a great feeling honestly, but like Bailey said I would feel a lot better if we get the win and like Bailey said we put our defense in some tough situations today and they fought their butts off honestly. Let's get back to drawing board and get ready for Indiana now."

Redshirt senior defensive tackle Jeremy Darvin
On the team's late comeback attempt:
"To me personally, I have been here for a while and that is probably the best I have seen as far as the overall team just staying the game, fighting the whole game, and just being connected and understanding the last five minutes to win the game. It's great to see, we are really bought in, and we really got a good team."

Graduate senior defensive end Michael Pitts
On the team's confidence moving forward:
"Definitely coming in after halftime, making those adjustments… I definitely think that made a lot more people buy in and then coming back almost. So, it's a loss but you can still take some good from this loss."