KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Sunrise can wait. Lance Taylor cannot.
Western Michigan’s first-year head coach, still settling into this Midwestern college town that sits in the state’s southwestern corner and some 40 miles from the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, is on the move.
His family still in the process of relocating from Louisville, Kentucky, to the home of WMU and its approximately 15,000 undergraduate students, Taylor presently lives in the shadow of the Broncos’ Waldo Stadium – in the guest housing on site of school president Dr. Edward B. Montgomery’s campus dwelling – and covers the few hundred yards an hour before the sun will finally, rarely, rise to shine on this late-March weekday, heaps of snow still dotting business and campus parking lots.
The Broncos have practice this morning, but only after a team meeting at 7:30, position meetings, and all the requisite pre-practice preparations.
Building on a theme evident in his first team meeting, little more than 100 days earlier Dec. 9, 2022, the day Taylor formally is introduced as head coach, the former Alabama walk-on wide receiver continues to establish the foundational element for which there is no compromise in the Western Michigan program: time is the most precious commodity, and the Broncos are not going to waste it under Taylor’s purview.
He paces inside the team room on the ground floor of the Donald Seelye Athletic Center and opens the meeting without preamble.
“What’s one thing we said we're going to be better at this week?,” Taylor asks his players.
“Toughness,” comes the answer from multiple areas of the room.
“Toughness where?,” Taylor again asks. “At the point of attack. Be fast and physical, which equals playing with confidence. Know, and know that you know.
“Let’s have a great day today. We know the schedule. Let’s stop talking about it and let’s be about it.”
Before dismissing players to their respective meetings, which for the special teams staff includes Green Bay Packers Hall of Famer Ryan Longwell, a consultant to the Broncos’ coaches, Taylor sets the tone with one more statement.
“Hey, be a (jerk) out there,” he says, players in aggressive agreement. “Be a (jerk) between the white lines.
“EAT on three!”
FootballScoop embedded with Western Michigan approximately midway through the Broncos’ inaugural spring camp under Taylor, the former Alabama player, Nick Saban disciple, heralded ex-NFL assistant coach, 2015 FootballScoop Running Backs Coach of the Year – and devoted Morgan Wallen stan, the country superstar’s new 36-song double-album streaming nonstop in Taylor’s spacious office, which also doubles as gameday suite for his family.
The Broncos are working today to clean up mistakes and pivot forward on the heels of their first major intrasquad spring scrimmage. They’ll also do so with a phalanx of recruits on hand, nearly a hundred kids from Detroit, as well as prospects earning invites directly from the WMU staff. A handful have offers; a graduate-transfer will commit by midday.
Humility matching personality, Taylor is seeking to take it all in stride – but maintaining the candor that keeps him in contact with former star pupils the like of NFL wunderkind Christian McCaffery, a signed helmet from the former Panthers and current 49ers star among Taylor’s office décor.
“Nothing can prepare you for being a head coach,” Taylor says between meetings and in advance of practice. “That’s one thing I would say; I’ve been fortunate enough to be around some really great coaches, being on the ground level with Coach Saban when he took over at Alabama his first couple of years there and how he changed the culture.
“Every head coach I’ve been around has helped prepare me for this opportunity, but you don’t know until you sit in this seat. All the things that you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. I’ve been really pleased with our first hundred days, really excited about our staff that we hired. I think we’ve hired an excellent staff, and my success will be determined by the guys that we have in our locker room and the guys we have in our staff room. Those are the guys who will help to execute the mission and vision that I lay out. The team has been really bought in, but the first 100 days have been nothing short of a whirlwind.
“I’ve had multiple head coaches, even PJ Fleck reach out to me and offer advice, and they’ve all told me that cliché of it’s like drinking water through a firehose, and it feels like that. It feels like you’re just trying to stay afloat.”
Fleck is the WMU coaching standard bearer, his 29 wins, an ESPN GameDay and Cotton Bowl appearance from 2014-16 the Broncos’ halcyon days.
Taylor, because he remembers visiting WMU to scout the program for the Carolina Panthers during those days, and because of the vision he shares with second-year Broncos athletics director Dan Bartholomae, believes in the future.
“My first experience with Western is when I was coaching receivers at the Carolina Panthers, and after the 2016 season, Corey Davis, had that great year with PJ, went to the Cotton Bowl. And my first experience was watching them in the Cotton Bowl but then going through the Draft process and coming to Kalamazoo and seeing Pro Day,” Taylor recalls. “That was my first experience here. I thought, ‘Man, this place is awesome. It’s incredible.’ It reminded me of, really, my first coaching job, which was at Appalachian State. That was my first full-time coaching job, and when I was there, I said to myself, ‘Man, this is an unbelievable place. People love it. People want you to be great, they’re going to give you all the resources.’ It’s a small town, but it’s got a big-time football feel, and I felt that exact same thing here.
“So that first experience with Kalamazoo and Western Michigan helped shape my thoughts and opinions of here, but then really what really made me excited about the job is our athletic director, Dan Bartholomae. He’s got a great energy, great vision; he understands the importance of football and wants us to be great, to give us all the resources and tools to be successful. When I felt like we were aligned and would be a great pair working together, I thought it would be a home run.”
Perhaps, it can be. But coaches almost never take over a full cupboard, and WMU is no different. Thus the recruits. Thus the greater-than-ever commitment from the school for the Broncos’ off-the-field staff, starting with industry leader Gaizka Crowley as general manager, including decades-long coaching veteran Chris Cosh in a senior analyst role, Todd Leitschuh and former Notre Dame icon Tom Zbikowski in similar analyst posts, Paige Robbins, expanding personnel and recruiting staffers plus an on-field staff blending defensive coordinator Lou Esposito, a revered, highly-esteemed MAC staple with head coaching experience, plus an offensive staff with up-and-coming stars in coordinator Billy Cosh, line coach Trevor Mendelson and running backs coach Anthony Davis – his star undeniably ascending.
TEMPO IS KING
What Taylor continues to learn about being a head coach, his Broncos continue to learn about playing within a hyperkinetic system.
Taylor points to former mentor and current LSU coach Brian Kelly for his “88s;” that’s the even more uptempo segments of practice. The Broncos are rolling, not officially midway through spring with an entirely new offensive coaching staff, as well as head coach, and nonetheless snapping off plays, regularly, within 12 to 15 seconds of the previous snap.
It’s not uncommon to time the Broncos back addressing the line of scrimmage within eight seconds of the previous snap.
“It’s really different from what we’ve done in the past,” says veteran offensive lineman Jake Gideon, a 2022 Rimington Award Watch List honoree. “We’ve done some tempo plays in the past, but nothing like that. We have a lot of tempo plays, and Coach Cosh emphasizes playing fast and playing physical at all times. I think keeping the defense on their heels at all times is important, is something that’s going to be really beneficial for this offense.
“I think Coach Taylor has done an awesome job so far. I think his first team meeting, he set the tempo and the mood and culture for what he wanted for Bronco football. I think we all bought in immediately and knew we had to step up our standards. It’s been really great to see.”
Midway through practice, WMU takes a break. Defense retreats to the far side of the indoor field; offense gathers closer by.
“It’s about tempo and habits,” Taylor explains, providing insight on the “88s” setup. “We want to enforce effort and habits, and that’s something I picked up from my time around Coach Kelly.”
Coaches and players both note the ever-elevating pace of play, even in practices. No one format is an automatic success, and no one methodology comprises a college football mold for success.
Different things work for different programs.
Still, ‘Coach Espo’ has the carryover knowledge to see what’s benefitting the current Broncos.
“With our pace,” he says, “we’re getting probably 15 extra reps per practice. Maybe as many as 150 extra reps by the end of spring. …
“That’s like two extra practices, almost two games.”
Before 11, Taylor’s smartwatch shows almost 10,000 steps and he’s soon to top five miles before noon.
BRONCO BREAKFASTS SET THE TABLE
With an intentional approach to the calendar’s shortest month, Taylor builds the practice foundation in February.
He does so one Saturday at a time, but with almost too many eggs to count.
“Bronco Breakfasts” unfold every Saturday morning in February inside the WMU athletics complex. Attendance is optional; no one is taking names.
Then again, there’s no need. Word of mouth, not to mention copious amounts of food and “Paige’s cinnamon rolls with homemade icing,” draw players by the dozen.
So much so that WMU spring camp is fueled from breakfasts a month earlier – the feasts including 20-25 dozen eggs, roughly 50 pounds of bacon, countless pancakes and a couple hundred cinnamon rolls.
“Bronco Breakfasts are something Coach Taylor implemented for us this offseason, him and all the coaches would cook us a great breakfast,” Gideon says. “It was really nice to have that, to spend some time with them and break some bread with the coaches.
“I think it’s a testament to them, for them to open up to us and to show us we’re able to talk to them about anything. And really get to know them, so that we can trust them and the can trust us. That’s really the biggest part of new coaches coming in. It was really great for the team.”
In breaking bread, Gideon says, the Broncos are honing a culture.
“Right from the jump, that really caught me, to see that investment from them and that buy-in to this program,” says the junior lineman with 26 career games. “They’re all coming from all over and they all have one common goal and they really want to change this culture.
“I think me and the entire team, once we saw that, we wanted to buy in as soon as possible and support them as much as could.”
PROGRAM OXYGEN
Eventually, Taylor’s lunch gets cold.
Dozens of recruits work their way upstairs into the WMU complex and tour coaches offices; prospects with offers join Cosh, Davis and Crowley, among others, for the ubiquitous photo shoots that now, at least for social media, define recruiting visits.
Still others meet with Taylor one-on-one. A graduate-transfer linebacker commits. A roster that, in part, withstands poaching from Colorado and Deion Sanders along its defensive line also gains an additional piece for the coming season.
The recruiting visits conclude around 2 p.m., and Taylor settles in to view the morning’s practice before the day’s final staff meeting at 5.
TAKING THE NEXT STEP
He’s encouraged by effort and tempo and doesn’t mind that, at least twice, offensive and defensive teammates are separated for scuffling.
There’s an identity forming within those friendly-fire fisticuffs.
Nothing, though, is singular in need.
The Broncos are able to utilize their state-of-the-art Monarc Seeker system – a revolutionary training tool already in use by the likes of Ohio State – that’s billed as the “world’s first robotic quarterback.”
Together, Taylor and Bartholomae are brainstorming for their vision to deliver the future of Broncos football, one evolving in an unprecedented sea change within NCAA football.
“We’ve founded Club 66,” Taylor says, “to honor our first MAC title team in 1966. He and I put that initiative together, we’ve been able to do some things for the program that have been funded through Club 66, and what we’ve found is that people want to help Broncos football.”
The trail is only starting for Taylor & Co.
“I think the biggest thing that we’ve really tried to harp on is our identity and making sure that we lay the foundation the right way,” Taylor says. “It’s not necessarily about success and wins in Year 1, and we want to win every game we go out there.
“But even the AD and I have had multiple conversations about, it is the process. Building this the right way, making sure the culture is set, and that we get the mind-set and mentality right. And I think if we do those things, the wins will come.”
Already, Taylor is showing he has no plans of waiting around for success to follow.
