WKU Athletic Director Todd Stewart sat down with the Herald Sports Staff Wednesday, where he discussed topics revolving around Hilltopper football, recent NCAA agreements, Conference USA and athletics budget overspending.
Stewart is in his 13th year as WKU’s Athletic Director. Since he was hired in 2012, WKU has 54 total conference championships over 11 sports, 20 NCAA tournament appearances in volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball and softball and 11 bowl game appearances.
Here’s what we learned.
Tyson Helton and WKU Football Staff
WKU Football Head Coach Tyson Helton received an extension through 2028 following last season. Stewart said Helton received interest for head coaching jobs at three other schools before his extension on Dec. 28.
Through six seasons on the Hill, Helton is 48-32 with six bowl-game appearances.
“In this day and age, with all the change in college athletics … you really need somebody that obviously is a good football coach, but you also need somebody that is a good manager of the program, and I feel like he’s both of those,” Stewart said.
Helton’s base compensation will remain the same but Stewart said there will be “a couple of tweaks in how the buyout is handled.” Helton’s contract extension is awaiting renewal from the WKU Board of Regents.
Along with Helton’s extension, Hilltopper football lost Defensive Coordinator Tyson Summers and well as Co-Offensive Coordinators Will Friend and Drew Hollingshead.
WKU promoted Defensive Backs Coach Da’von Brown and Inside Linebackers Coach Davis Merritt to serve as co-defensive coordinators and hired former Abilene Christian Offensive Coordinator Rick Bowie to fill the same position on the Hill.
Stewart said Bowie’s hire follows a similar blueprint to the build of the 2021 Hilltopper offense, one which saw former offensive coordinator Zach Kittley and quarterback Bailey Zappe come from Houston Baptist and lead WKU to a 9-5 record. Abilene Christian quarterback Maverick McIvor is joining Bowie at WKU.
Transfer Portal
Stewart gave a short answer when asked about the current state of the NCAA football transfer portal – “I don’t like it.”
According to WKU Football Sports Information Director Jared MacDonald, the Hilltoppers have had 38 players enter the portal. Quarterback Caden Veltkamp, defensive lineman Hosea Wheeler and kicker Lucas Carneiro are former Hilltoppers who left WKU via the portal.
Stewart said the portal gives athletes more “rights and opportunities” than they had five years ago. However, he argued the portal could hinder teaching students valuable lessons.
“If every time you hit adversity, you transfer and go somewhere else, you don’t really learn those things,” Stewart said.
Stewart hopes there are portal parameters put in place that would allow athletes to have freedom while creating guidelines.
One of those parameters, a shortening of the period in which players can enter the portal to a 10-day window in January, has already been proposed by Football Bowl Subdivision coaches.
Stewart believes the proposal would help “on the surface level,” keeping players from transferring before their team plays in the bowl game.
“I think if we could have greater continuity through the season and the postseason, and then have the transfer situation, that would be much healthier than currently have,” he said.
Revenue Sharing and Scholarships
Starting in the 2025-2026 school year, institutions in the NCAA will be able to compensate their athletes directly. Stewart said WKU Athletics will have a better idea of what they will do in April when the House v NCAA Settlement is settled, but he said WKU will opt in.
“If you don’t opt in, you can’t do anything. If you do opt in, then that just gives you flexibility to do things,” Stewart said.
Along with revenue sharing, the NCAA football scholarship limit in 2025 is increasing from 85 to 105, with the roster limit shrinking to the same mark. Stewart said football will not give out more than 85 full scholarships in 2025-26.
He said programs are allowed to break scholarships up to give scholarship aid to more athletes, a practice new to football but one that has been used in spring sports like baseball and softball.
Conference USA
Stewart said Conference USA is in a “much better place” compared to when it lost six schools to the American Athletic Conference in 2021.
From a competitive standpoint, he said the additions the conference has made “are really strong.” According to teamrankings.com, CUSA is the eighth-rated conference in men’s basketball this season.
Stewart said the main challenge of CUSA is geography. With the additions of Delaware and Missouri State in June 2025, the conference will span 2,068 miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Dover, Delaware.
“It is Conference USA,” Stewart said.
Stewart listed cost increases and missed class time as problems with the current geography of the league.
“There’s certainly some unintended consequences of that (the geography of CUSA),” Stewart said. “It’s a challenge and I give our athletes and coaches for the way they deal with that.”
Stewart said WKU is currently happy with its relationship with CUSA.
Budget
WKU Athletics overspent their budget by $2.7 million in 2023-2024. According to a report from the Faculty Senate Budget and Finance Committee Meeting on Jan. 9, Stewart cited inflation, budget cuts and mistakes in budgeting as contributing causes to the athletics overspend.
In his meeting with the Herald, Stewart said WKU switching to the RAMP budget model was a reason for the mistakes in budgeting, including budgeting only $140,000 for postseason expenses, which costed over $1 million.
“We as an athletic department didn’t initially make the adjustments that we should have,” Stewart said. “We were plugging the budget numbers in because that’s what they’d always been, even when we knew that that wasn’t probably the way it was going to turn out.”
According to the report, $500,000 of the athletics repayment plan has come from a $2 million buyout from former Men’s Basketball Head Coach Steve Lutz.
Men’s Basketball
Stewart sang the praises of first-year men’s basketball Head Coach Hank Plona. Plona was an assistant coach for the Hilltoppers last season when they made the NCAA tournament.
“People on the outside didn’t see it as much, but he was vital to the success that we had last year,” Stewart said.
“Unfortunately, right now, the challenges are injury-related that no one can control,” Stewart continued. “You’re looking at a guy coaching without Babacar Faye, without Teagan Moore, and now without Julius Thedford, but those three guys on the court were a very different team.”
The team started the year with a tough two-game skid on the road before going on a 9-2 run, ending 9-4 in the non-conference slate. The Hilltoppers entered conference play with an impressive Thedford and Don McHenry-fueled comeback versus Liberty.
They have gone 3-4 in the conference slate, with Thedford suffering a knee injury against Middle Tennesee.
Women’s Basketball
Stewart said he is “really encouraged” by the Lady Toppers’ performance throughout the season. He cited WKU’s win against Middle Tennessee State on Jan. 18 as a win that “validates the improvement that we’ve had.”
“I think Greg (Collins) and his staff have done a really good job,” Stewart said.
Stewart credited guards Josie Gilvin and Mackenzie Chatfield as players who have been with the program for multiple seasons and have seen their work pay off this year. Gilvin averages 10.5 points and 5.5 rebounds a game while Chatfield averages 6.6 points a game and 47 total assists.
Sports Editor Jake McMahon can be reached at [email protected]
