The second of Ohio State’s three tune-up Group of Five games arrives in Week 2, one from the same MAC conference as its Week 1 opponent.
Western Michigan
Broncos
Western Michigan comes to the Shoe hoping for a more complete performance than Arkon had in Columbus, as the Zips hung with the Buckeyes in the first half to enter halftime down just 17-3 but a second-half tsunami swept up a 52-6 win for Ohio State. OSU, for its part, will be looking for another blowout that sees it improve some of its inefficiencies, particularly those that appeared on offense in the first 30 minutes.
On paper, the Broncos should provide a slightly stiffer test than the Zips, going 4-8 last season and recording a Week 1 result that indicates WMU can challenge Power Conference teams. Western Michigan had a similar caliber of defense but a better offense, statistically, than Akron a year ago.
Veteran Backfield
Jalen Buckley stars at running back for Western Michigan. Jeff Hanisch - USA TODAY Sports
Western Michigan’s starting quarterback and bell cow running back both return from 2023.
Redshirt senior Hayden Wolff is the quarterback, and though he played eight games and started only four last year, he doubled the next-best passer on the Broncos’ roster in passing yardage with 1,505 yards through the air. His completion percentage of 65.5% also far outpaced the 55.3% mark of Treyson Bourguet, who was second on the team with 713 yards.
Wolff came to Kalamazoo from Old Dominion, where he started 22 games combined between 2021 and 2022. He’s a career 60.4% passer with 7,224 yards, 38 touchdowns and 22 interceptions on his ledger. Wolff opened his 2024 campaign by going 12-of-18 for 141 yards with a pick against Wisconsin.
Toting the rock alongside him is redshirt sophomore running back Jalen Buckley. Buckley was one of five 1,000-yard rushers in the MAC last season, just eclipsing that mark with 1,003 yards at a rate of 5.3 yards per carry. He added 10 scores on the ground. He picked up 64 yards in 16 carries with two touchdowns against the Badgers.
Below Average everywhere in 2023
One game is a bit small of a sample size to judge any team off of, but Western Michigan’s team ranked in the 80s out of 134 college football teams in 2023 for many statistical categories.
The Broncos were 80th in total offense, 87th in passing, 86th in total defense, 84th in run defense and 82nd in pass defense. They were 91st in scoring offense and 73rd running the football themselves. Scoring defense was Western Michigan’s biggest weak point, with the 31.8 points they surrendered per game landing in a tie for 109th in the nation.
They were below average across the board, a small improvement over Akron which received similar defensive marks but landed near the bottom of the country on the offensive side of the football. The Zips were 130th in scoring and 129th in total offense last season.
So there might be a skosh more resistance from Western Michigan on Saturday night? Ohio State’s massive talent advantage over both teams should render them equally ineffective on paper, even if the Broncos’ Week 1 performance raised a few eyebrows. Speaking of which:
Wisconsin Warriors
This is Western Michigan's second consecutive road matchup with a Big Ten opponent after it traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to open its campaign. The Badgers were certainly expecting a cruise and easy tune-up to start their second season under Luke Fickell.
What they got instead was a dogfight. Or whatever a brawl between Badgers and Broncos is called.
Western Michigan hung tight with Wisconsin throughout, even taking the lead in the first minute of the fourth quarter on a 1-yard scoring trot by Buckley. The Broncos defense forced a three-and-out on the ensuing drive, meaning a chance for their offense to drain the clock and build the team’s lead.
Or it would have gotten that chance had the Badgers’ punt not bounced backward and ricocheted off Western Michigan cornerback DaShon Bussell. Wisconsin’s Austin Brown recovered the ball on the Broncos 15-yard line, scored a touchdown to take the lead and won the game 28-14 from there to survive the scare.
Waldo’s Boulder
WMU was called Western State Normal School until 1927, Western State Teachers College from then until 1941 and Western Michigan College of Education from there to 1957 when it finally became Western Michigan University. The land granted to build WSNS already had its share of buildings, possibly the oldest of which was Eames Mill, built in the 1840s to produce waterpower and various wooden parts like wagon wheels and pipes.
Eames Mill served multiple purposes for the school in the first handful of decades it existed, including as a playhouse for theatre. It was demolished in 1942 despite pushback from thespians at WMCE. Officials decided to use the site to honor the institution's first president, Dwight B. Waldo, who served from 1904 through 1936. The following quote comes straight from Melissa Paduk’s “A Walk Through Western Michigan University’s History:”
“The site of the former Eames Mill is now the location of President Dwight B. Waldo’s boulder, which is situated near the intersection of Oakland Drive and Stadium Drive. Growing up in Plainwell, Michigan, President Waldo always admired this boulder, and these feelings carried over into his adult life. In 1944, Western’s Men’s Alumni Club raised money to have the boulder brought to Kalamazoo.”
Their first president admired a big rock all his life. It’s now one of the most recognized landmarks on campus. A plaque commemorating Waldo’s legacy has since been added to the boulder. Western Michigan football also plays its home games at Waldo Stadium, named as such after the president’s death in 1939.
Brown-Eyed Susans
Flowers inspired Western Michigan's brown and gold color scheme. Jeff Hanisch - USA TODAY Sports
Western Michigan’s brown and gold color scheme predates its Broncos nickname, as the school’s athletic teams were the Hillsmen, then the Hilltoppers until 1939 when the Broncos moniker was born. Reports of WMU athletes sporting Brown and Gold date back to 1905, a year before the football team was established in 1906 and just two years after the university’s founding in 1903.
Once again, it’s Waldo who’s involved here. The story goes that WSNS’ handful of athletics teams founded in the first two years of the university’s existence began wearing brown-and-gold ribbons and sporting brown-and-gold pennants at games in the spring of 1905.
Waldo’s secretary pointed out that the pattern matched that of the brown-eyed Susan flowers that bloomed on campus the following summer, and at that suggestion, Waldo made brown and gold the official colors of Western Michigan University.
The scarlet and gray will meet the Brown and Gold on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Big Ten Network will broadcast the contest.
