With Boise State visiting, it's time to talk about Western Michigan’s CFP path
Western Michigan is in the thick of the field as the Group of 6 playoff race shapes up early, and have an opportunity to cut to the front of the line Saturday at Waldo Stadium.
Kalamazoo — Lance Taylor struck a wry grin while deftly parrying away the loaded question of the week, the type of query Western Michigan’s head coach generally rejects the premise of to begin with.
“You've been around me long enough to know that I don't talk about the past or the future,” Taylor said on Monday from the lectern for his regular game week press conference. “We're gonna focus on going 1-0 this week. Nice try.”
And while Taylor didn’t bite on the question (asked by this writer) — which boiled down to “Are you addressing the CFP stakes with your team at all this week or keeping that outside the locker room?” — he did acknowledge that Saturday is a major game with heavy implications for Western Michigan.
“I think we understand what it means for this program, and in terms of national implications,” Taylor said. “I mean, that's a testament to where we are from a culture and a program standpoint. I think they've earned the right to be in the national spotlight, whatever that means, with this game, playing a really good football team against Boise.”
With Western Michigan (2-1) hosting Boise State (2-1) at Waldo Stadium this Saturday at 3:30 p.m., the stakes for this season have come into focus. Western Michigan entered the year as one of the handful of Group of 6 teams that had a shot to compete for the lone College Football Playoff bid among the G6 squads. It made good on that promise in the first three weeks, setting up something of a ladder match with the Broncos from Boise. The winner will have one of the inside tracks to vie with Tulsa, New Mexico, James Madison and a few others (UMass!?) for the Group of 6 playoff spot.
It’s a game plenty of people in Kalamazoo, Boise and afar have pointed to as a key data point in the G6 playoff race. It’s going to air on ESPN2 in a national TV slot.
And when both Bronco teams acquitted themselves well vs. respective ranked Big Ten opponents in Week 1, all that was left was going 2-0 in the interim weeks to get to a Week 4 game at Waldo Stadium that could be as big as any in deciding which Group of 6 team makes the CFP.
“But we can't make it more than it is or less than it is,” Taylor said.
The (early) G6 playoff picture
Unlike prior iterations of the 12-team playoff where multiple Group of 6 teams can get in, the format has been tweaked heading into 2026 where the top-ranked G6 team in the final CFP rankings makes it in. The team selected doesn’t necessarily need to be a conference champion, but in all likelihood it will be.
The clearest contenders for the Group of 6 playoff spot, after three weeks (plus week zero) are both WMU and Boise State, a glut of 3-0 or 4-0 teams (Tulsa, North Dakota State, Appalachian State, James Madison, USF, and yes, UMass), 2-1 New Mexico and 3-1 Memphis, which already lost to Boise State.
Going undefeated is the best argument any of these teams can make for themselves, but of that group only Tulsa and UMass have a win over a Power 4 opponent.
UMass rolled a downtrodden Rutgers team and Tulsa has what’s likely going to hold up as the best G6 over P4 win this season, best Oklahoma State 24-10 in Week 2. App State plays North Carolina State this weekend, a big opportunity for the Mountaineers to bolster their resume.
Andrew Graham
Andrew Graham
James Madison, USF and North Dakota State all don’t play a Power 4 opponent in 2026. Memphis is pushed down the table by its loss to Boise State, and also doesn’t face a P4 foe.
That leaves New Mexico, Western Michigan and Boise State. All three of those teams are 2-1 but lost by a score against a ranked P4 team on the road for their lone loss.
Boise State fell by a touchdown to Oregon (which later lost to Oklahoma State, a transitive tick of the schedule in favor of Tulsa.) New Mexico managed to hang around and lose 14-6 to Oklahoma in Norman.
And Western Michigan, of course, officially lost 13-12 on the road against Michigan (which beat Oklahoma, another transitive bit of fun) but also led 12-7 at the end before a controversial Hail Mary walked it off for the Wolverines. Though the sting of the loss and controversy is real in Kalamazoo, the absolute result — Western Michigan beating up Michigan for much of that game — moved the needle for WMU.
It’s not clear which way the CFP selection will lean in terms of weighing close losses to P4 teams vs. teams that are undefeated but less tested. But if the AP and coaches poll are indications, showing mettle matters more than an unblemished record.
No G6 team is ranked in the Top 25 currently in either poll; Boise State led the G6 teams in votes in both polls, with 48 in the AP and 29 from the coaches.
WMU comes second in the AP, with 27 votes, ahead of Tulsa and its 18 votes. It’s reversed in the coaches poll, where Tulsa has 20 votes and WMU has 17.
JMU and NDSU got a smattering of votes in the AP poll and the coaches also had some votes for them, plus a few for UMass.
Fair or not, narrative probably matters
Western Michigan has established a clear one: The gritty MAC team that had an apparent win vs. Michigan snatched away and is responding by winning.
AP voters boosted the Broncos after the Week 1 showing, despite losing. A win Saturday will have more voters — and the selection committee — keeping serious tabs on the Broncos.
Tulsa has a good case to sell, beating the Cowboys that turned around and stung Oregon for an upset. North Dakota State can stump about being a first-year FBS team that is pulverizing the opponents in its way. New Mexico just looks like a kick-ass team, though its performance vs. OU might lose value as the season progresses as the Sooners offense keeps tanking.
As has been evident in recent years, the campaigning and maneuvering to get a G6 team (or even P4) a CFP bid will get whirring, and in some ways already did with the MAC applying pressure on WMU’s behalf to try and change the result of the WMU-Michigan game.
The various narratives around these teams won’t be an end all, be all, but they’re part of the filter that their season-long performances get understood through.
Western Michigan’s ability to withstand the early controversy, turn around and go 2-0, and not get mired in recrimination and blame surely served the Broncos well.
The path for Western Michigan
In a lot of ways, Taylor is spot on in laying out that it’s about going 1-0. Western Michigan has to beat Boise State.
And had WMU not focused on beating Rice, and then beaten Rice, this conversation might be moot. Though the data point that this weekend produces will have an outsize weight on the end result of the season for WMU, Taylor and Co aren’t going to make this game bigger than it needs to be internally.
“I talked about that last week when you point at Rice,” Taylor said. “Each game — this game doesn't matter if you don't take care of last game. And same is true with next week. Next week's game doesn't matter if you don't take care of this week.”
So for WMU’s own concerns, the Broncos just need to focus on beating Boise State.
Then the Broncos will realistically need to run the table in the MAC and win the MAC title game. There are some key games within the league schedule to make statements, but WMU’s slate is rather soft in 2026. And it's a safe bet the Broncos will be applying the 1-0 mindset throughout.
Beating Boise State helps in a few ways for the rest of the things that might need to happen to open up the path for WMU to make it to the CFP. It gives the Broncos a win over the cream of the Pac-12 (the new-look one), and a leg up over Memphis. It’s also a better win than a lot of the teams not facing P4 teams will muster.
And it would mean the competition would likely boil down to something like New Mexico or North Dakota State out of the Mountain West, Tulsa out of the American and whichever of App State or James Madison that emerges from the Sun Belt.
The Golden Hurricanes have easily the best win out of that grouping and the chance to pick up some solid conference wins through American league play. And everyone else, at least from the AP and coach poll, is playing some amount of catch up.
Tulsa is probably in the driver's seat among G6 teams right now, holding a P4 win and undefeated. But history also suggests a loss is coming for Tulsa and the other undefeated and 1-loss teams — or at least most of them.
When (or if) the loss comes, how, and to whom matters greatly for any of the teams trying to walk the narrow tightrope from being a promising preseason G6 team to a CFP berth. A second loss will be nearly-impossible to overcome with just one spot available.
So standing there on Monday afternoon, his team 2-1 with everything it’d want still in front of it, Taylor probably delivered the only message he needs when it comes to his team making a largely improbable march to the CFP: Keep going 1-0.
It’s all the Broncos can control and if they take care of their business, there’s a good chance that selection Sunday could be meaningful in Kalamazoo.
“So I think our focus is going 1-0, playing to the best of our ability, playing to our standard on Saturday,” Taylor said.
