Western Michigan has become a team of national interest even without winning a game yet this season.
Of course, college football fans nearly everywhere feel the Broncos got a raw deal in last weekend’s 13-12 loss at Michigan.
An extra second was put on the clock to give the Wolverines a second chance for a “Hail Mary” throw and Michigan capitalized to hand Western Michigan a very sour setback.
But in the wake of losing, the Broncos have become winners in another sense and are receiving support from across the nation.
“What our team did on Saturday night garnered a lot of respect from a lot of people around the country,” Western Michigan coach Lance Taylor said during his weekly press conference. “Even if you had never watched our football team, what our players did on Saturday night at the Big House, we have a lot of people cheering for us around the country.”
Of course, football coaches know to move on quickly, regardless of whether their team won or lost.
FCS program Monmouth (1-1) is next on the slate, this Saturday at Kalamazoo, Mich., and Taylor knows dwelling too long on the Michigan controversy might be counterproductive in preparation for this contest.
“This is going to be a really big test for our football program,” Taylor said. “This is a great opportunity for us to reset and refocus. This is a great opportunity to respond and see our true character.”
Taylor’s press conference was dominated by Michigan questions even after he expressed in his opening remarks that he wanted to move forward. But while making that request, he had a reference to “another second.”
“We will grow from it,” Taylor said. “We will be better and stronger because of it and we’ve turned the page. So I’m not taking another second to address what happened on Saturday night.”
The beginning of the school’s game notes also included a well-calculated message.
After having a THIS WEEK headline to talk about the contest against Monmouth, the looking-back at the Michigan game portion was telling.
LAST WEEK
Moving on …
And Taylor touched on that theme throughout his press conference: The Broncos need to move on, they need to correct mistakes from the Michigan game and they need to take advantage of a chance to be in the spotlight by delivering more good performances.
Western Michigan’s loss at Michigan will long be remembered nationally as a victory that was stolen from the Broncos.
But in Taylor’s view, there are 60 minutes of evidence that Western Michigan dominated the Wolverines in front of 110,879 fans in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a national television audience.
“Regardless of what the scoreboard said, everybody saw a physical Western Michigan football team taking it to a Big Ten program, and they can’t deny that,” Taylor said. “Everybody saw that on national TV, on NBC, and I’m proud of that.”