University of Northern Iowa football coach Mike Dunbar favors a plan to add Western Kentucky to the Gateway Football Conference in 2001. With just seven teams in the conference, Gateway teams have had difficulty filling their schedule with 11 games. Dunbar says Western Kentucky, known as the Hilltoppers, have a tradition that would make the league even stronger on a national level. Western Kentucky finished 6 and 5 last season. The Hilltoppers last made the division one-double-A playoffs in 1997, when they reached the quarterfinal round.