I can’t write anything about this Western Kentucky football season that hasn’t already been bludgeoned to smithereens by reporters, radio hosts, messageboard sages - even the Hilltopper players and coaches themselves.

Head coach David Elson acknowledged Western’s deep football rut on Saturday afternoon, perhaps the bleakest, grayest, coldest afternoon yet in a season teeming with joyless afternoons. Moments after the Hilltoppers slogged to a seventh straight setback, extending the program’s longest losing streak in 17 years, Elson muttered words which are almost never spoken in good times: “I know it’s a broken record ...”

What else can Elson say? Nine times this season the Hilltoppers have tried to explain the problems that have compounded into a dubious piece of program history - the second nine-loss season in 89 years of WKU football, with a chance to set the all-time mark on Dec. 6 at Florida International.

The explanations are many and oft-repeated. But after Saturday’s drama-deprived Senior Day loss to the formerly three-win Middle Tennessee at a less-than-half-filled Houchens-Smith Stadium, senior quarterback David Wolke had little interest in rehashing the unpleasant specifics.

“I think we’ve got a great football team,” Wolke said. “I think we’ve got great plans coming into games. We really don’t know what’s going on.”

Perhaps it’s better the Hilltoppers don’t know. I don’t doubt the players’ effort, I don’t think - like a small but vocal group of Internet yahoos - that the coaching staff is incompetent. The Hilltoppers have endured a brutal schedule and they have often been competitive. But they have not won, a fact that surely is obvious to the coaches, who understand as well as we do that the program’s gears have been badly grinding this season.

There’s still one game left to play, in a distant three weeks. Three weeks for the Hilltoppers to forget how they skidded to 2-9, three weeks to think of some way to finish with one more afternoon to remember.

“I guarantee we’re going to go out all three weeks with no breaks and work,” junior receiver Jake Gaebler said, rejecting the notion that the Hilltoppers will coast through the remainder of an essentially lost season.

That’s good news, because the less gloom WKU retains from this year to the next will be a benefit. The less the Hilltoppers remember about this season the better, especially when WKU begins its quest for Sun Belt Conference championships and postseason bowl bids.

Still, even if WKU manages a season-ending win at FIU, it won’t be enough to completely soothe the emotional wounds of the Hilltopper seniors. Elson got “that sick feeling in your stomach” after Saturday’s home closer and issued an apology to his upperclassmen. In a season of so much frustration, that’s about all he could do.

Because as much as the returning Hilltoppers need to forget 2008, Elson knows his seniors’ memories won’t be so short.

Especially after Saturday.

“I will remember this game for a lifetime,” Wolke said.

— Daniel Pike is sports editor for the Daily News. He can be reached at 783-3271 or by e-mailing dpike@bgdailynews.com.