Christian Taylor Ready to Put His Stamp on Wyoming’s Offense
- Jeff Bugher
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
LARAMIE, Wyo. - Christian Taylor knew what he was leaving behind when he packed his bags for Laramie in January.
The University of Wyoming’s new offensive coordinator had spent the previous two seasons with the Buffalo Bills, working inside a team that made it to the AFC Divisional game alongside former Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen.
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Walking away from Buffalo wasn’t easy.
“It was difficult, to be blatantly honest,” Taylor said. “It was a really difficult decision. There’s a lot of really good people there. I had a lot of fun working there and it was a great opportunity there.”
But Taylor had something he wanted to get back to… running an offense.
“My passion and my job is coordinating offense,” Taylor said. “And I had missed doing that.”
The passion brought him 1,300 miles west to Laramie, where Taylor has been tasked with rebuilding an offense that had 21 points per game in the first 8 games and 6 points per game in the last 8 games of the season in 2026.
The icing on the cake for Taylor’s decision was how highly Allen spoke of his alma mater.
“Josh Allen raved about the university and the state and people, and it just felt like the right thing to do,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he and Allen didn’t have extensive conversations about his playing days at Wyoming, but the Bills quarterback made his feelings about the school and state clear.
“He just spoke very highly of the people in the university and how important the football program is to the state and how Laramie itself as a city was a really cool place to live and experience,” Taylor said. “So nothing but really positive things to say about his time here.”
Now Taylor gets an opportunity to put his own stamp on Wyoming football.
Building a ‘gritty’ offense
Head coach Jay Sawvel has said it many times…he took a blowtorch to the offense during the offseason. Christina Taylor has been a big part of the sweeping changes.
Ask him to define his offense, and one word comes first.
Gritty.
“We want to be a gritty offense,” Taylor said. “We want the opponent to feel this play. We want to be the more physical offense on the field. We want the fans in the stands to feel our energy and passion that we have playing the game, and we want the production to speak for itself.”
There is another important part of Taylor’s vision: Wyoming cannot become predictable.
“We want to be the elite two-dimensional offense,” Taylor said. “If you’re one-dimensional offense, you’re too easy to defend.”
Remember retired head coach Craig Bohl talking about how his team cannot be one-dimensional?
This means running and throwing effectively. Yet there’s a twist. Taylor also wants multiple personnel groups, formations, and motions.
His ultimate vision is what he calls a “positionless offense,” where a defense cannot necessarily determine Wyoming’s formation or intentions
simply by seeing which players enter the game.
It is one of the characteristics that caught head coach Jay Sawvel’s attention when he hired Taylor.
“Christian Taylor has a great football mind and has had success at two different schools as an offensive coordinator and has great experience in the National Football League,” Sawvel said when Taylor was hired. “He has coached on both sides of the ball and what is impressive is how he utilizes his players and his diversity in the run game.” *Source: UW Media Guide 2026.
Sawvel pointed to Wyoming’s tight ends as an example. Rather than forcing personnel into a predetermined system, Taylor is willing to adjust the system around the personnel available.
“The beautiful thing with Coach Taylor is he’s not married to one set of positions,” Sawvel said. “Okay, we have good running backs. We’ve got some receivers that can run around, and if we need to do it a different way, then we’ll do it a different way.”
Adaptability isn't new. Mike London, Taylor's former head coach at William & Mary, told Pokes News shortly after Taylor was hired that one of his greatest strengths is building an offense around the players he has rather than forcing players into a predetermined system.
Less can be more
Variety doesn’t mean an unnecessarily massive playbook.
Taylor learned that lesson during his time in the NFL.
By the end of spring camp, he estimated Wyoming had already installed roughly 80 to 85 percent of its base offense. Then by the middle of fall camp, Taylor said approximately 95 percent of the playbook had been installed.
“I’m a big believer in mastering your core concepts,” Taylor said. “That was one of the cool things, getting to study NFL offenses. Like the elite offenses didn’t do too much. They had their elite concepts, and their core concepts that they were great at.”
Taylor said the best offenses understood the weaknesses of those concepts and developed complementary plays while finding different ways to disguise what they were doing.
The goal isn't necessarily having more plays.
It’s making the same concepts look different.
“We want to master our core concepts and dress them up in many different ways in order to stay unpredictable to the defense,” Taylor said.
The résumé behind Christian Taylor
Taylor brings 16 years of collegiate coaching experience and two seasons in the NFL. Before Buffalo, he was William & Mary’s offensive coordinator from 2020-23 and was named the 2023 AFCA FCS Assistant Coach of the Year.
His William & Mary offenses ranked among the nation’s best in multiple categories, finishing in the top 10 nationally in 13 offensive statistical categories during his tenure. Taylor previously coached at San Diego, Illinois Wesleyan, San Diego State and Michigan.
The experience is already showing during fall camp.
“I think we’re executing better offensively,” Sawvel said during fall camp. “We’re playing quarterback far better than we have at any time since I’ve been here.”
I can tighten it even further to just one background paragraph before the Sawvel quote.
Running the ball is still important
For a program traditionally associated with running the football, Taylor isn't planning to abandon that identity.
He believes winning still requires being able to run it.
“I think you do win games by running the football, and then you score explosively through your pass game,” Taylor said. “It takes the complement of both to have the elite, efficient offense that you want.”
That philosophy could also show up in areas where Wyoming struggled a year ago.
Sawvel has repeatedly emphasized improving in short-yardage and red-zone situations, and Taylor’s ability to create different formations and leverage could provide some answers.
“It’s been better,” Sawvel said of Wyoming's short-yardage work during camp. “We’re going to be more diverse in short yardage, which helps us do some other things that will help the O-line, help the whole process.”
The quarterback run game is another piece. Sawvel noted that having a quarterback capable of running forces defenses to account for another player, particularly in the red zone. Which is something starting quarterback Tyler Hughes knows how to do well.
Measuring success one drive at a time
Ask Taylor if there’s a state he’s looking at this year…only one really matters to him.
“The only stat that really matters is the scoreboard,” Taylor said.
But there is one offensive measurement he will watch closely: scoring percentage per drive.
The reason? Wyoming might receive significantly fewer possessions against a ball-control opponent than it does against a faster-paced team. What matters is what the Cowboys accomplish with the opportunities they receive.
“How efficient is your offense with each drive that you get?” Taylor said. “So our goal is to be the number one team in the country when it comes to scoring percentage per drive.”
This goes right back to how he described his offense…Gritty.
“Our goal every time we take the field is to score a touchdown,” Taylor said. “We’re going to be an aggressive offense with high standards and expectations.”
Taylor could be preparing for another NFL season in Buffalo; instead, he chose Laramie and an opportunity to coordinate an offense again.
“I’m very appreciative of the opportunity and what an awesome opportunity to represent the entire state,” Taylor said. “I think what’s exciting is the group of people that are here and they have high goals and high ambitions. They want to achieve some things here that haven’t been done before.”
Taylor isn't putting a ceiling on what those things could be.
“The sky’s the limit for us,” he said. “The goal is to win every game.”
The first chance to see Taylor's offense for real comes Sept. 5th in Fort Collins, when Wyoming opens the season against Colorado State in the 118th running of the Border War.
About the Author:
Jeff Bugher is a third-generation Wyomingite living in Casper. He is a sportswriter and Wyoming Cowboys/Cowgirls enthusiast who is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA ) and the National Sports Media Association (NSMA). Jeff's work has been cited by Sports Illustrated, one of the world's leading sports publications.
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