WKU's recent dominance of MTSU football is a bad look for Rick Stockstill | Estes

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – For a brief moment Thursday night, Middle Tennessee State was able to feel good against its biggest rival.

Elijah Metcalf caught a short pass and raced 72 yards for a touchdown. There was 11:07 left in the first quarter, and the Blue Raiders were already celebrating, barely noticing the penalty flag.

Offensive holding. No score.

And not much joy for MTSU after that.

Western Kentucky rolled 31-10. They were humbled and outplayed – again – by the Conference USA peer they’d least want to do it. The lead was 20 at halftime. Despite signs of life by MTSU in the second half, it never got that close.

Compared to the storied history of this rivalry, this chapter won’t be all that memorable except for the fact that it extended the Hilltoppers’ recent dominance over the Blue Raiders.

Five in a row. First time WKU has done that to MTSU since 1934.

Afterward, MTSU coach Rick Stockstill used words like “disappointing” and “frustrating,” but he made clear that he was attaching them to Thursday night’s game, not the previous four losses to WKU.

“I'm disappointed in this game right here,” Stockstill fired back when asked about WKU’s streak. “That's what disappointing to me. That we weren't able to get this win.”

I’d imagine MTSU’s fans are disappointed in all the losses to WKU. This is the one game each season that means a little more to each fanbase. It has more than a century of tradition. It has a catchy name — chef’s kiss to “100 Miles of Hate.” You get it. There’s a genuine dislike between the two sides.

Given the proximity, passion and similarities, this game makes a reliable measuring stick for each program, and that’s trending toward Bowling Green. From 2014 to 2017, multiple overtimes decided were needed three times to separate these two.

WKU’s last three wins over MTSU have been by margins of at least 18 points. Hilltoppers coach Tyson Helton – you might remember him as the offensive coordinator of Jeremy Pruitt’s first season at Tennessee – is now 5-for-5 against Stockstill and MTSU.

Which, amid a 1-4 start to this season, isn’t a great look for Stockstill and MTSU.

Not sure how much that’ll matter.

Any time the topic of his future has come up around MTSU’s program, the popular consensus typically seems to be that the Blue Raiders’ expectations are tied to maintaining bowl eligibility each season.

And Stockstill has done that a lot.

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That has made him a fixture at MTSU. He’s now in his 18th season, a rare feat. Only three current FBS head coaches (per FootballScoop.com) have longer tenures, and Kirk Ferentz (Iowa), Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) and Kyle Whittingham (Utah) are at Power Five programs. Rarer still is the coach doing that sort of thing in the Sun Belt and Conference USA.

Longevity at a mid-major can be a narrow lane. A coach has to have been successful to keep the job, obviously, but not so successful that a bigger school dangles enough cash to lure him away.

And that, more or less, describes Stockstill’s tenure at MTSU. The Blue Raiders have been bowl-eligible for 12 of his 17 seasons. Nine times, they’ve won seven or eight games in a season. Only once have they won more than eight games. They went 10-3 in 2009.

While they are 1-4 this season, these Blue Raiders were close to knocking off Missouri in Week 2, barely losing 23-19. They let one get away in last week’s 31-23 defeat to Colorado State. Another late push feels imminent.

“We just haven't been consistent enough to get these couple of wins here,” Stockstill said. “We've got seven games left. We'll see what kind of team we have at the end of the year. You don't evaluate a team after five games.”

Last season, MTSU went to play Miami – the Miami they’ve made 30-for-30 documentaries about – and beat the ranked Hurricanes 45-31. Next three games after that, the Blue Raiders lost them all by at least 15 points. Stock still held it together, though, to finish 8-5 and in a bowl game.

During Thursday night’s game, they pushed back from 23-3 in the third quarter, getting within a fourth-and-goal stop by WKU of cutting the deficit to one score.

Hey, that’s MTSU. Some good. Some bad. Never too high or too low, reliably reverting to the mean.

Well, except against WKU. It's become clearer what to expect after traveling those 100 Miles of Hate.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: WKU's streak against MTSU football is a bad look for Rick Stockstill