Craig Has The Scout - Western Michigan 2025
Coming Up
Who: Western Michigan Broncos
When: 7:00 pm – September 13th, 2025
Where: Home Sweet Home
How: FS1
Opponent Primer:
Head Coach: Lance Taylor.
Lance Taylor is in his third season as the head coach of the Broncos. Taylor came to Western Michigan after being the offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Louisville under Scott Satterfield. Prior to that he was the RB coach at Notre Dame and Stanford with stints in the NFL as a WR coach. Taylor is known as a recruiting whiz and offensive mind. His hire was meant to mimic the Fleck years of bringing in a high energy recruiter and is starting to show promise.
Offensive Style: Spread Option.
Walt Bell is in his second season as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in Kalamazoo. Bell’s coaching journey spans a wide swath of college football. After playing wide receiver at Middle Tennessee, he climbed the ranks through stints at Oklahoma State, Southern Miss, and North Carolina before landing OC roles at Arkansas State (2014–15), Maryland (2016–17), Florida State (2018), Indiana (2022–23), and now Western Michigan (2024–present). His most explosive work came at Arkansas State, where his offense averaged 40 points per game and broke multiple school records. Results have varied though, his tenure as head coach at UMass was a tough 2–23 stretch. Bell is known for crafting spread offenses with tempo that lean heavily on the run while keeping defenses stretched sideline to sideline. He prefers zone-read, quick-hitting RPOs, and vertical shot plays off play-action. Bell’s offenses aims to keep pressure on defensive substitutions and alignments.
Defensive Style: Base 4-2-5 flexing to a 3-3-5 with Heavy Man Coverage.
Chris O’Leary took over as the DC this season for the Broncos replacing Scott Powers. O’Leary coached at Notre Dame with Taylor and was the safeties coach for the Chargers in 2024. O’Leary was at Notre Dame for six years prior to the Chargers, and took over as full time DB coach when Freeman took over as the DC. His scheme blends NFL-style pattern matching with aggressive front-seven movement, including stunts and blitzes designed to isolate blockers and create chaos.
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