Lynn Henning

The Detroit News

They will sort through applications that only a few years ago would have been unimaginable.

Playing in a Cotton Bowl, finishing a season 13-1, becoming one of college football’s best stories in 2016 — Western Michigan’s a catch for coaches who would love tapping into the fury the Broncos brought their fans, and perhaps their football future, during a wondrous 2016 season.

But now Western is looking for a new leader. P.J. Fleck, architect of WMU’s grand year, on Friday was hired as head coach at Minnesota. And suddenly there’s an empty office in Kalamazoo.

There is no sign yet how narrowly or broadly Western prefers to take its search, but within a state and region that fundamentally is a base for the Broncos, there are potential hires Western may indeed consider.

Among them:

•Mark Staten, Michigan State offensive line coach: He has allure, beginning with his southwest Michigan roots (Dowagiac High, 44 miles from WMU’s campus), his college playing days at Miami (Ohio), two seasons of work in the NFL (ended by knee injury) and his years as an assistant at Ohio State, Cincinnati, and for the past 10 years on Mark Dantonio’s Michigan State staff, including early years as Dantonio’s recruiting coordinator.

Staten last month was auditioning for the coaching job at Northern Michigan before removing himself from the contestants’ list. Before coaching, he had a brush with acting in Hollywood before taking up coaching. Staten is 46 and might, at the very least, find his way into the Broncos’ interview room.

•Matt Simon, Western Michigan receivers coach: Simon appears to be the in-house option who might get the longest look from Broncos athletic director Kathy Beauregard. He was a wide receiver at Northern Illinois when Fleck coached there and joined Fleck at Kalamazoo after stints as an assistant at Northern Illinois, the University of St. Thomas (Minn.), and then at Rutgers, before returning to Western as Broncos receivers coach. He’s a Minnesota native, only 31, but is considered in personality and style to be something of a Fleck replica.

•Tim Lester, assistant coach, last at Purdue: You can find Lester’s plaque inside the Western Michigan Hall of Fame, owing to his award-winning years as Broncos quarterback (1996-1999). And you can assume Lester is high on Beauregard’s list, given that he was considered to be in Beauregard’s high regard ahead of Fleck’s hire.

Lester followed his grand career at Western by working as a Broncos assistant. He also was an assistant at North Central College, and at Elmhurst College. He was head coach at St. Joseph’s College, and later at Elmhurst, before moving to Syracuse as quarterbacks coach, then to Purdue as quarterbacks coach. He was not retained when new coach Jeff Brohm came aboard last month. Lester’s hometown is Wheaton, Ill.

•Matt Mitchell, Grand Valley head coach: He is 69-20 with the Lakers and, given GVSU’s tradition, will soon lead to more elite work for a man who could find himself on Western’s must-interview list. Mitchell, 41, has coached at Wartburg as an assistant, and since 2004 at Grand Valley, where in 2009 he became head coach when Chuck Martin left to join Brian Kelly at Notre Dame.

•T.J. Weist, South Florida co-offensive coordinator — He is 51, a Bay City native, and a longtime assistant who worked in 2015 as an assistant on Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan staff. He also ran the Bulls during last month’s Birmingham Bowl, in which South Florida beat South Carolina after Willie Taggart had departed to become coach at Oregon.

Charlie Strong now is in charge at South Florida, and Weist, at least for now, is a free agent. He has twice worked at Michigan (he was on Gary Moeller’s staff there), as well as at Alabama, Southern Illinois, Tulsa, Indiana, Western Kentucky, Cincinnati, and Connecticut.

So, there’s quite a resume. The question Beauregard might or might not be asking: Is this the kind of man and experience Western should consider?

It’s a question Beauregard and the Broncos are otherwise asking themselves, probably about a good many candidates, as an attractive job and some equally appealing candidates begin to align.

Lynn henning@detroitnews.com

Twitter.com/Lynn_Henning

News staffers Tony Paul, Matt Charboneau, and Angelique Chengelis contributed to this story.