Coordinators share takeaways from Week Zero win

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Over the weekend, WKU football opened its season with a 41-24 victory over Sam Houston led by quarterback Maverick McIvor, who in his Hilltopper debut passed for over 400 yards and scored 4 total touchdowns.

McIvor’s efforts in Week Zero were awarded with a pair of honors, being the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Week and the East-West Shrine Bowl’s Monday Morning Quarterback.

McIvor’s offensive coordinator Rick Bowie was pleased with his performance, but he shared Monday morning that it’s only up from here, with more hard work to go as the next week approaches.

“ The fact of the matter is if he walks into a meeting room and I tell him how good he is all the time, he’s not getting any better, so I was pleased with the way he performed, but ultimately the beauty of college football is we get to line it up again,” Bowie said. “You’re only as good as your last game, as Coach Helton says, so looking forward to seeing what that looks like moving forward. We’ve put [the Sam Houston] game to bed and we’re moving forward.”

The WKU defense is also moving ahead to the North Alabama matchup with both pros and cons from its premiere presentation.

The Bearkats were held under 30 points on Saturday, a mark they reached in nearly half of 2024’s games, but Sam Houston’s scores were powered by a pair of explosive plays on the ground, and outside of those runs the team was quiet on offense, only converting on 2-of-14 third downs.

The emphasis has been placed on stopping the run by those in charge, and after one game it appears things are headed in the right direction.

“ That’s something you got to hang your hat on. You got to be able to stop the run, and you know, you go back and you look at it, I think there was about 150 yards rushing, you know, taking away the quarterback scrambles, you take away the two long runs, it’s about 20 carries for 47 yards,” co-defensive coordinator Davis Merritt said. “You can win doing that, but guess what? Those two runs count, so, we got to be able to eliminate those explosives, find a way to get guys on the ground and make a play the next play. So, that’s a big thing, you know, [we’ll] make sure we get it corrected moving forward this week.”