Football

FB: WKU to Host LA Tech in Championship Game

WKU's 60-6 win at Marshall on Nov. 26 meant that the Hilltoppers (9-3, 7-1 in C-USA) had repeated as East Division Champions and that it would host the 2016 Dynacraft Conference USA Football Championship Game on Saturday, December 3.  Louisiana Tech (8-4, 6-2 in C-USA) punched its ticket as West Division Champion back on November 12. The C-USA Championship Game will be televised live on ESPN, beginning at Noon EST/11 a.m. CST.  This will be the first time in league history that the game will be hosted by the same school in consecutive seasons.

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Championship Records
 
The game represents a rematch of one of the highest-scoring games in Conference USA this season, a 55-52 Louisiana Tech win over WKU in Ruston on October 6.  In the win, LA Tech senior QB Ryan Higgins passed for 454 yards and five touchdowns and junior WR Carlos Henderson had eight catches for 232 yards and three touchdowns for the Techsters.  Senior QB Mike White had 340 yards and five touchdowns passing for WKU.  LA Tech led the game 49-24 late in the third quarter before WKU battled back to within three points.  In a game that featured more than 1,100 yards of total offense, Bulldogs sophomore DE Jaylon Ferguson sealed the game with a huge strip sack in the final seconds to end a potential Hilltopper rally.
 
Louisiana Tech comes in with the top-ranked scoring offense (44.0 points per game), passing offense (348.0 yards per game) and total offense (516.8 yards per game), while WKU is second in those three categories (44.0 points, 330.2 passing yards and 505.8 total yards per game).  On the other side of the ball, these are the two top run defenses in C-USA, with WKU allowing just 106.9 yards per game on the ground and LA Tech surrendering 126.4 yards rushing per outing.
 
Higgins now has 34 passing touchdowns for the Bulldogs, which is tied for the third-most in program history.  He also has 3,706 passing yards, which ranks sixth in school history.  Henderson has 20 touchdowns this year (16 receiving, two rushing, two kickoff returns), the second-most among FBS players, while senior WR Trent Taylor has 113 receptions, one shy of the C-USA single-season record.  Both receivers have more than 1,200 yards receiving, with Taylor posting 1,462 and Henderson registering 1,204.  Defensively, Ferguson leads C-USA with 14.5 sacks and senior S Xavier Woods has a league-high five interceptions.
 
White has topped the 300-yard passing mark in a league-high six games for WKU, totaling 3,606 yards and 31 touchdowns, both second-most in the conference. The Hilltoppers also have a pair of 1,000-yard receivers in seniors Taywan Taylor (1,392 yards and 14 touchdowns) and Nicholas Norris (1,103 yards and 13 scores).  On the ground, senior RB Anthony Wales has a league-best and school-record 20 rushing scores and has run for 1,167 yards.  Defensively, senior LB Keith Brown is at the top of the conference with 116 tackles.
 
Led by Jeff Brohm, the Hilltoppers won their first Conference USA Championship in their second year in the league last season and are seeking to become just the second team to win back-to-back championship games (East Carolina, coached by LA Tech head coach Skip Holtz did it in 2008 and 2009).  The Bulldogs are in the C-USA Championship Game for the second time in three years and Holtz will be coaching in the game for the fourth time, matching UCF’s George O’Leary for most coaching appearances in the game.  It will be second all-time appearance for each school.
 
Tickets for the C-USA Football Championship game will be available online at www.wkusports.com or call 1-800-5BIGRED.  For more information, Please visit the football championship page on www.ConferenceUSA.com.