Image via Eastern Michigan Athletics
Western Michigan: How’d they get here?
Kalamazoo probably understands that 2016 was a special time for a special team, and it took a few years for that team to become an overnight success.
One of the better-resourced programs in the MAC, Western Michigan was able to find success with P.J. Fleck’s work to re-elevate the program into being a MAC title winner by 2016 (Western’s first MAC title since 1988). Fleck coached through the Cotton Bowl (lost to Wisconsin), then took the Minnesota job four days later.
Tim Lester, a former standout quarterback with the Broncos, brought good but not great results to his program. In this league, a 37-32 record is usually a good enough elevator pitch to keep your job. But his job was to keep WMU in the driver’s seat of the MAC West divisional race, and he ended up going 2-4 against both Toledo and Eastern Michigan (finished on 4-game losing skid to EMU), and 3-3 against Northern Illinois.
Decent, but decent wasn’t good enough.
So, Lester was let go after a 5-7 season in 2022 and was replaced with a first-time head coach whose father once played for Bear Bryant. Lance Taylor, also a former Alabama football player, was picked from his OC post in Louisville to be WMU’s new head man.
The first two years of the Taylor era weren’t so great, but it wasn’t all terrible. A 4-8 start his first season, but that includes an outright Michigan MAC title with double-digit wins over Central Michigan (38-28) and Eastern Michigan (45-21). Taylor’s second season ended with a 6-7 record after a bowl game loss to South Alabama, but at least the Broncos were 5-3 in MAC play.
All was forgiven by his third year, when the Broncos finished the season atop the MAC regular season standings, then beat Miami in Detroit for its first championship since Fleck’s final season.
2016 (P.J. Fleck): 13-1-0 (8-0-0 MAC); MAC Champions
2017 (Tim Lester): 6-6-0 (4-4-0 MAC)
2018 (Tim Lester): 7-6-0 (5-3-0 MAC)
2019 (Tim Lester): 7-6-0 (5-3-0 MAC)
2020 (Tim Lester): 4-2-0 (4-2-0 MAC)
2021 (Tim Lester): 8-5-0 (4-4-0 MAC)
2022 (Tim Lester): 5-7-0 (4-4-0 MAC)
2023 (Lance Taylor): 4-8-0 (3-5-0 MAC)
2024 (Lance Taylor): 6-7-0 (5-3-0 MAC)
2025 (Lance Taylor): 10-4-0 (7-1-0 MAC); MAC Champions
Last year’s team didn’t truly have a quarterback to start the year, but Broc Lowry won the starting job by the team’s fourth game and cashed in a league MVP-type season with late-game heroics to pick up some wins over Toledo (14-13), Central Michigan (24-21), and Ohio (17-13) – all won at home.
Taylor, after he turned down the UAB coaching job, is back. QB Lowry returns to WMU’s 2026 unit, as does RB Jalen Buckley (who has two 1,000-yard rushing seasons at WMU already, and most of last year’s offensive line too.
That’s a pretty good start walking into a run-it-back year.
This year’s Bronco unit will have to rely very heavily on the transfer portal (again) to re-stock its defense, but the MAC coaches still picked Taylor’s team to repeat as league champs in 2026 (9 votes for WMU, 4 for Miami). Should WMU repeat as champions, it’ll be the first team to win the league title in back-to-back years since NIU in 2011 and 2012.
The sky is the limit for this year’s Broncos team. If WMU can beat Boise State in the Bronco Bowl, then this team’s going to be thinking about making the College Football Playoff the rest of the way.
The 12-team playoff didn’t yet exist when the Broncos got hot in the Fleck years. Now, this team opens the year with a chance to do something that last decade’s team couldn’t have done. The only thing this group has to do is repeat as MAC champions and win all of its biggest games of the year.
PLAYERS OF NOTE
QB, Broc Lowry — Last season’s conference MVP with 23 total touchdowns scored (9 pass, 14 rush) and 2,766 yards of offense accounted for (963, 1,803).
RB, Jalen Buckley — Rushed for exactly 1,003 yards in 2023 and 2025. Buckley was the MAC Freshman of the year in 2023, Third Team All-MAC last year, and was also the offensive MVP in both the MAC Championship and Myrtle Beach Bowl.
DE, Kedrick Burley — From FBS (Middle Tennessee) to NAIA (Keisar), then back to the FBS this defensive end went through the transfer portal. In 12 games last season, Burley made 55 tackles (15 TFL, 5.5 sacks), and recorded 7 QB hurries.
CB, Joshua Franklin — Named Third Team All-MAC last year after he recorded 52 tackles (5.5 for loss, 1.5 sacks) and 10 pass breakups from his cornerback spot.
CB, Javarius Sims — The former Central Michigan Chippewa comes back to Kalamazoo in 2026 as the team’s returning leading tackler (64 total, 3 for loss, 1 sack) as a cornerback.
