Last July, Brett McMurphy of On3 asked all sixteen Big 12 head coaches to name the two teams that would meet in the conference championship game. Thirty-two votes were cast. BYU got none. The Cougars were coming off an 11-2 season, a share of the regular-season title, and an Alamo Bowl win over Colorado, but the coaches knew about the quarterback situation. Jake Retzlaff was facing a seven-game honor code suspension. He transferred to Tulane before the opener.
McMurphy ran the same poll this month at Big 12 media days in Frisco, Texas. This time, BYU led it, with six first-place votes to four for Texas Tech, the defending champion. Thirteen of the sixteen coaches picked the Cougars to finish first or second. McMurphy told the Deseret News that Kalani Sitake is the best coach in the Big 12 right now and that a BYU title would not surprise him in such an unpredictable league.
What changed was the quarterback. Bear Bachmeier arrived in Provo late, after Retzlaff left, and learned Aaron Roderick's offense in a summer. He threw for more than 3,000 yards as a true freshman, ran for more than 500, and won twelve games. He played the Big 12 championship game against Texas Tech on a sprained ankle. Three weeks later, still hurting, he completed 27 of 38 passes for 325 yards in a Pop-Tarts Bowl win over Georgia Tech. BYU finished No. 11 in the final Associated Press poll and out of the Playoff for the second consecutive year.
The program said almost nothing about the snub. Nicole Auerbach of NBC Sports told the Deseret News she respects that. Sitake declined to lobby the committee while other programs spent the winter doing little else. "It is unique compared to the way that everyone else has been whining each year," she said. Her advice pointed the other way: if BYU beats Notre Dame this fall and Bachmeier keeps playing like this, the school should start pushing the sophomore for the Heisman.
Notre Dame comes to Provo on October 17, the Irish's first visit to LaVell Edwards Stadium since 2004. McMurphy believes that game gives BYU something no other Big 12 team has, a Playoff path that does not require a conference title. Beat Notre Dame, get to Arlington with double-digit wins, and he thinks even a loss in the title game leaves the Cougars in the field. The premise carries a condition, he acknowledged himself. They have to beat Notre Dame.
The schedule will not make it comfortable. BYU's only bye falls on September 26, so the Cougars play nine straight games to close the year. October alone brings a trip to TCU, where BYU has not won since 2006; a Friday night game against Iowa State; a trip to Notre Dame; a flight to Orlando to face UCF; and then Arizona State. Between the TCU game on October 3 and the trip to Kansas on November 21, the Orlando flight is the only time BYU leaves the state.
Not everyone is convinced. A Deseret News poll of sixteen beat writers, one for each school in the league, gave Texas Tech fourteen first-place votes, with BYU the clear runner-up. The writers can point to real losses. Defensive coordinator Jay Hill followed Kyle Whittingham to Michigan, and Kelly Poppinga now calls the defense. Chase Roberts is catching passes for the Raiders, and the receiver room behind Bachmeier is the position group every preview flags as a concern. Against that, BYU returns LJ Martin, the league's preseason offensive player of the year, signed the highest-rated recruiting class in program history, and extended Sitake's contract.
Sitake spent media days answering the expected questions the way coaches do, with talk of work ethic. The record says enough. Since the Big 12 expanded to sixteen teams in 2024, no program in the league has won more games than BYU's 23. The season opens on September 5 against Utah Tech. Notre Dame arrives six weeks later.
