Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
Rivalry will close long season for Blue Raiders
11/25/2019 5:00:00 PM | Football
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — A long, grinding season will end Saturday for Middle Tennessee, and the Blue Raiders have saved their best matchup for last.
For the 69th time, MT (4-7, 3-4) will square off with its rival WKU (7-4, 5-2) on the gridiron in the 100 Miles of Hate. The Blue Raiders hold an all-time advantage of 35-32-1.
"I think the passion that everybody has on both sides of the ball for this game [makes it fun]," Middle Tennessee head coach Rick Stockstill said. "The history of this game goes back a long, long way — back to the OVC and 1-AA days. There's a lot of tradition, a lot of history in this game. Here recently, since we started playing every year from the Sun Belt to Conference USA … there were exciting, close, competitive games."
The rivalry has been inundated with close matchups in the last several years. The teams have needed extra time to settle the outcome in four of their last seven meetings, and in the last eight, the Hilltoppers have outscored the Blue Raiders just 291-282.
This year's Middle Tennessee senior class, which is coming off a 38-17 win over Old Dominion on senior night, has played in two overtime games against WKU but have just a single win, 29-10 last year.
"Going on the road up there is always tough," Stockstill said. "We're coming off a good week last week … so we've got to be very efficient offensively, and we've got to do a great job protecting the ball because they make you earn everything you get."
Last year's loss to the Blue Raiders was one of nine on the season for the Hilltoppers, who slipped to a 3-9 record in what proved to be Mike Sanford's second and last season as head coach.
Tyson Helton was hired in November to take the reins, and he's wasted little time getting WKU back into the upper tier of the Conference USA East Division standings. The Hilltoppers are currently tied for second in the East, one game behind leader Florida Atlantic.
Middle Tennessee would love to get a win and squash WKU's small C-USA title chance, and it'll need a good offensive display against a strong Hilltoppers defense. They rank towards the top of the conference and nation in scoring and total defense, giving up 19.5 points and 326.2 yards per game.
"To me, it always starts with players," Stockstill said. "They've got good players on defense. It's an older group. … To me, it starts with players and then what they do schematically defensively, they change up the pressures with zone and man coverages, their pressure packages are very diverse.
"They do a good job. They've got a good football team on that side."
It's been a long season of bumps, bruises and other injuries for the Blue Raiders, with almost 30 scholarship players being hampered the last couple of weeks.
Getting a win over their biggest rival to end the season with back-to-back victories could be just what the doctor ordered.
"It's the competitiveness for this game, the passion that people have for this game, that makes it fun, makes it enjoyable, makes you want to play, makes you want to coach in this game," Stockstill said. "We've got to make sure we have a great week of practice and that we are mentally and physically tough going on the road this week."
For the 69th time, MT (4-7, 3-4) will square off with its rival WKU (7-4, 5-2) on the gridiron in the 100 Miles of Hate. The Blue Raiders hold an all-time advantage of 35-32-1.
"I think the passion that everybody has on both sides of the ball for this game [makes it fun]," Middle Tennessee head coach Rick Stockstill said. "The history of this game goes back a long, long way — back to the OVC and 1-AA days. There's a lot of tradition, a lot of history in this game. Here recently, since we started playing every year from the Sun Belt to Conference USA … there were exciting, close, competitive games."
The rivalry has been inundated with close matchups in the last several years. The teams have needed extra time to settle the outcome in four of their last seven meetings, and in the last eight, the Hilltoppers have outscored the Blue Raiders just 291-282.
This year's Middle Tennessee senior class, which is coming off a 38-17 win over Old Dominion on senior night, has played in two overtime games against WKU but have just a single win, 29-10 last year.
"Going on the road up there is always tough," Stockstill said. "We're coming off a good week last week … so we've got to be very efficient offensively, and we've got to do a great job protecting the ball because they make you earn everything you get."
Last year's loss to the Blue Raiders was one of nine on the season for the Hilltoppers, who slipped to a 3-9 record in what proved to be Mike Sanford's second and last season as head coach.
Tyson Helton was hired in November to take the reins, and he's wasted little time getting WKU back into the upper tier of the Conference USA East Division standings. The Hilltoppers are currently tied for second in the East, one game behind leader Florida Atlantic.
Middle Tennessee would love to get a win and squash WKU's small C-USA title chance, and it'll need a good offensive display against a strong Hilltoppers defense. They rank towards the top of the conference and nation in scoring and total defense, giving up 19.5 points and 326.2 yards per game.
"To me, it always starts with players," Stockstill said. "They've got good players on defense. It's an older group. … To me, it starts with players and then what they do schematically defensively, they change up the pressures with zone and man coverages, their pressure packages are very diverse.
"They do a good job. They've got a good football team on that side."
It's been a long season of bumps, bruises and other injuries for the Blue Raiders, with almost 30 scholarship players being hampered the last couple of weeks.
Getting a win over their biggest rival to end the season with back-to-back victories could be just what the doctor ordered.
"It's the competitiveness for this game, the passion that people have for this game, that makes it fun, makes it enjoyable, makes you want to play, makes you want to coach in this game," Stockstill said. "We've got to make sure we have a great week of practice and that we are mentally and physically tough going on the road this week."
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