6-3, on track for 8-4 in the regular season.
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 1-1
2024Salute to Veterans BowlL 23-30
2025Myrtle Beach BowlW 41-6
This week Wed Nov 4
- Last gameW 23-10 vs. Bowling Green Sat Oct 31
- This season6-3
- On track for8-4 regular season
- Nextat Akron Tue Nov 10
- Stature84th of 138 FBS programs
Tuesday: at Akron
Tue Nov 10, 7 pm ET CBS Sports Network · Akron is 1-8 · Taylor vs. Joe Moorhead: 1-0 · Western Michigan’s chance to win: 86% (the site’s model)
One headline named him in the last 7 days
85th of 138 FBS head coaches
Offense: 55th of 138 per play. Defense: 73rd.
3 games left
- Tue Nov 10at Akron (1-8)CBS Sports Network86%
- Tue Nov 17vs. Eastern Michigan (4-5)83%
- Tue Nov 24vs. Miami (OH) (5-4)73%
Percent: Western Michigan’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where Western Michigan stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 26–Nov 1W 23-10 vs. Bowling Green1 headline · 87th of 138
- Oct 19–25L 38-45 at Toledo0 headlines
- Oct 12–18W 21-14 at Central Michigan0 headlines
- Oct 5–11W 38-7 vs. Kent State0 headlines
- Sep 28–Oct 4W 20-17 at Buffalo0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltL 7-32 vs. Boise State0 headlines
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from Western Michigan’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
Report card
Offense carries it: 52nd percentile offense, below the median defense at 33rd.
Western Michigan, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Poach watch
This winter
Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.
What drives his number
The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.
- ▲ HigherHis team is 6-3, outscoring opponents by 7.0 points a game
- ▲ HigherHis 4th season at Western Michigan
- ▲ HigherAge 45 · neither at his alma mater nor in the state he was born in
How good is this number? It ranks a head coach who leaves for another head-coaching job ahead of one who stays 78 to 82% of the time, and its average came within a point of the share who actually left. What it can’t do
Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.
- The live number prices the games he has left with the power model’s ratings from this season. The test priced them with each team’s rating from the season before, because ratings made during past seasons were not kept, so this live version could not be replayed.
- Programs new to FBS have no FBS record before this season in the data it reads, so their coaches are scored without one.
- It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.
- A coach hired in December needs his background (age, alma mater, the state he was born in) added before his first game, or he shows as not rated.
Fans
Fan chatter
- Sep 19W 28-21 at Rice
Need to stop reading the glazing and focus inward. I think Taylor's the right coach for this scenario.
Western Michigan fan
Several stories about him in the last 60 days
Tue Nov 10: Akron
from several outlets
247Sports Oct 29 · one outlet
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Many stories about him this season
from several outlets
Western Michigan HC Lance Taylor is casting a wide net in preparation for Michigan
Maize n Brew +1 Sep 1 · a few outlets
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Could another school hire him? What has he said?
Across his career
16 stories about him across 4 seasons
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Nov 4.
Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
6-1 against his rivals. Just 1-2 against Chuck Martin.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Bell.
2,564 run and pass snaps at Western Michigan, 2023–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 3 ranked Western Michigan classes of his own have averaged #96 nationally — best #71, worst #112.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 139 of 156 players. The other 17 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 24% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
21% of his 197 new players since 2023 came through the portal (FBS programs, same seasons: 26%). His share was 14% in 2023 and 22% in 2026.
Graded on the players who arrived and the players who left together, his portal seasons came out worse than most FBS programs’ in 2 of the 4 seasons graded. our read
Each player counts once, in the season he arrived. 2021, the first season of portal tracking here, is left off because its arrival records look incomplete (about 31 new players per FBS team, against 52 in 2022). Portal grade: the site’s position-value-weighted scoring (the same engine as the Portal Heat feed and the “Who won the portal” grade): the value of the players who came in minus the value of the ones who left, ranked against every FBS program’s grade that same season. A season with fewer than 4 transfers in and out is not graded.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Western Michigan rosters have averaged 10 lb lighter than the FBS average (2023–2026) — lighter than 96% of FBS coaching runs since 2010. In the three seasons before he arrived, Western Michigan’s line averaged 5 lb lighter than the FBS average.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 20 of 88 signees (23%) across his 2023–2026 tenure, drawn from 18 states in all. Next: IL (13).
48% of his signees come from MI and its 3 border states (IN 12, OH 7, WI 3).
Off this map: 7 signees to the west (CA 6, HI).
- median hometown distance
- 178 mi
- within 100 mi
- 17%
- within 500 mi
- 67%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 14%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 1 of them himself; 1 arrived under Tim Lester.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | R6.02 | Bilhal Kone | Cornerback |  Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2024 | R2.24 | Marshawn Kneeland | Defensive Edge |  Dallas Cowboys | recruited under Tim Lester |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
Stories about him
Headlines, grouped by what they are about. Each is the outlet’s own.
This week
Game preview
- Maize n BrewWMU HC Lance Taylor: ‘The refs did not cost us’ vs MichiganSep 6
- Pardon My TakeCFB Week 1 Chaos With Andy Staples, Western Michigan HC Lance Taylor, Who's Back Of The Week + Max Is Back From His Honeymoon With GiftsSep 8
Press conference and quotes
- [Paul] WMU coach Lance Taylor and president Russ Kavalhuna will hold a press conference at 2p to discuss last night’s finish at Michigan, as well as the Big Ten and MAC explanations and how the Broncos plan to move forward.Sep 6
MLiveHow did WMU respond after wild Week 1? Hear from Lance Taylor after dominant win in home openerSep 13
This season
Press conference and quotes
- [Andrew E. Graham] Asked Lance Taylor about the second being put on the clock. Said he hasn’t seen the TV copy but saw live that it was “past zeroes” before one of WMU’s players touched it. Also said MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher may already be in touch with the B1GSep 5
FootballScoopWestern Michigan head coach Lance Taylor speaks on screw job at the Big HouseSep 5- [Paul] WMU coach Lance Taylor and president Russ Kavalhuna will hold a press conference at 2p to discuss last night’s finish at Michigan, as well as the Big Ten and MAC explanations and how the Broncos plan to move forward.Sep 6
- MLiveHow did WMU respond after wild Week 1? Hear from Lance Taylor after dominant win in home openerSep 13
Arrest or discipline
On3Western Michigan coach Lance Taylor on controversial finish: ‘When I looked at the clock, it was past zeroes’Sep 5Reported by On3- MLiveAfter Michigan controversy, WMU’s Lance Taylor earns unprecedented national honorSep 9Reported by MLive
Game preview
- Maize n BrewWMU HC Lance Taylor: ‘The refs did not cost us’ vs MichiganSep 6
- Pardon My TakeCFB Week 1 Chaos With Andy Staples, Western Michigan HC Lance Taylor, Who's Back Of The Week + Max Is Back From His Honeymoon With GiftsSep 8
In his own words
Every quote, back to September 2026
In his own words
I know when I looked up at the clock, it was past zeros before we touched it
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
8th-best Western Michigan tenure of 10 by the numbers.
Followed Tim Lester (2017–2022).
| Season | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 4-8 | 6-7 | 10-4 | 6-3 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | W bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||||
| OC | Billy Cosh | Walt Bell | Walt Bell | Walt Bell | |
| DC | Lou Esposito | Scott Power | Chris O'Leary | Greer Martini / Duane Vaughn | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||
| Offense | 25 | 62 | 42 | 49 | |
| Defense | 27 | 9 | 87 | 58 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||
| 1st-down pass% | 45.2 | 37.2 | 36.4 | 41.5 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 29.4 | 33.0 | 21.3 | 23.8 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 47.1 | 54.3 | 50.0 | 42.9 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
A typical class-year mix of incoming transfers.
Coach of the Year: MAC Coach of the Year (2025)
1 player-season honored (All-America / national award): Addison West (2024)
Was he good?
Every angle here comes back inconclusive — not enough separation from zero to call it either way.
+1.4 pts at Western Michigan · #589 of 1290 · middle halfModel fit as of 2026-09-04.