In the middle of a tight race for the C-USA East division crown, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers helped their cause with a 42-21 victory against the Rice Owls on Saturday.
With the exception of their first half struggles against FIU, WKU had been scoring at will since they entered conference play. To give themselves a chance at victory, the Rice Owls made keeping WKU QB Bailey Zappe off of the field their main objective. They did that with reasonable success in the first half on Saturday, but their inability to find the end zone in the early going created a deficit that their ground-and-pound offense didn’t have time to overcome.