Hilltoppers

The 100 Miles of Hate, played every year against Middle Tennessee, carries more weight in Bowling Green than any trophy on the shelf. The nickname itself dates to 1911, when the university moved to a new campus on a hill and students hauled their belongings up it; the football side had already been playing under the Western Kentucky name three years by then, though its first sanctioned season did not arrive until 1913.

Ohio Valley Conference titles piled up through the 1950s, 60s and 70s, but the program's defining season came much later. In 2002, under Jack Harbaugh, Western Kentucky beat McNeese State 34–14 to win the Division I-AA national championship — still the only national title in the school's history. Jeff Brohm supplied the more recent high point, taking the Hilltoppers to back-to-back Conference USA championships in 2015 and 2016 after the program had moved up to the top division in 2009.

That jump produced a run of NFL draft picks rarely seen at a school this size, from Taywan Taylor and Forrest Lamp through to Malachi Corley, taken in the first round in 2024. Bailey Zappe, meanwhile, threw his way from a mid-round pick into a starting NFL job, part of the trail Brohm's era started.

Home games are played at Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium, on the hill the nickname refers to, rebuilt inside its old shell by a $50 million renovation in 2008 that left the ground holding just over 22,000 on matchdays.