The top-10 collision that’s been on the calendar since the schedule dropped is finally here, and it arrives with both teams carrying the kind of résumé that matches the hype. No.
8 BYU welcomes No. 2 Notre Dame on Saturday in the first top-10 matchup ever played at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
ESPN’s Football Power Index likes Notre Dame in the matchup, giving BYU a 21.8% chance to pull the upset. The Irish moved to No. 1 in the FPI rankings after blasting Stanford, while BYU climbed to 14th nationally in FPI after its win over Iowa State.
That sets up BYU against the model’s top team in the country. Notre Dame has won every game by double digits since dropping a pair of early games in the 2025 season.
BYU’s outlook across the rest of the schedule also sharpened after the Iowa State win. The Cougars now have at least a 66% chance to win every remaining Big 12 game except the Utah game.
Before the season, a 9-3 regular season was the most likely result. Now, after improving to 5-0, 10-2 is the likeliest finish.
When the game-by-game probabilities are stacked together, FPI gives BYU a 50% chance to win 10 or more games in 2026. Getting to 11 wins is where things get much tighter. BYU would first have to take care of every game it’s favored to win, and FPI says there’s only a 27% chance the Cougars go 5-0 against UCF, Arizona State, Baylor, Kansas, and Cincinnati.
From there, the path would require splitting the Notre Dame and Utah games. FPI pegs that at a 51% chance, with an 8% chance of going 2-0 in those two games and a 42% chance of going 0-2.
There are also some obvious spots where the model may not fully capture what’s happening on the field. BYU has repeatedly taken its foot off the gas and given backups snaps, including a few knees that would have boosted the numbers.
The Colorado State and Iowa State games also looked less comfortable than the final scores indicated, and the model would have treated a 34-point win over Colorado State very differently from an 18-point win. In that Colorado State game, BYU leaned on reserves who allowed 16 points in the fourth quarter.
At the same time, the model can’t adjust for an injury to a key player like LJ Martin, which could make BYU’s odds look better than they should.
Even with those limits, the numbers still paint a strong picture of where BYU stands. The Cougars have a 41% chance to make the College Football Playoff and currently hold the third-best odds to win the Big 12. With the league’s preseason heavyweights largely holding up so far, the Big 12 appears to have a real shot at sending multiple teams into the 12-team playoff field.
FPI says nine Big 12 teams are already out of the title race: Iowa State, UCF, Cincinnati, TCU, ASU, Colorado, WVU, Kansas, and Kansas State. That leaves seven teams still alive with at least a 1.9% shot, led by Texas Tech, Utah, and BYU. Together, those three teams have an 83.3% chance to produce the Big 12 champion.
Oklahoma State remains a team to watch too. Even after beating Oregon, FPI isn’t as sold on the Cowboys, though a road win over a ranked Houston team this week would lock them in as the league’s fourth contender.
Baylor is another name worth circling. There’s a real possibility the Bears enter Provo in November with an 8-1 record.
In Other News...
BYU Gets A Clear Warning From UCF Before Provo Showdown
UCF left Stillwater with a 42-28 loss to No. 18 Oklahoma State, and the result did more than just extend its road losing streak to 12 games. It also offered a glimpse of a team with enough pop to make things interesting, especially with quarterback Keyone Jenkins turning in his best performance of the season by throwing four touchdown passes.
The Knights will now have a bye week before hosting No. 8 BYU, and that stretch of time gives them a chance to clean up the kind of mistake that flipped the game in the fourth quarter. Linebacker Cole Kozlowski was back on the field after receiving an additional year of eligibility, another note of stability for a group that will need every bit of it when the Cougars arrive in Provo. [Read more 🡒]
BYU's Win Exposed Two Risky Problems Kalani Sitake Can't Ignore
BYUs 24-10 win over Iowa State came with the kind of clean result that can mask a few uneasy truths, and Kalani Sitakes staff has some film to sort through before the next kick. The Cougars handled enough business to keep moving, but the game also put a spotlight on two areas that felt less settled than the final score suggests: how aggressively BYU wants to live on fourth down, and how much field-position volatility comes with Tiger Bachmeier working in the punt return game.
There was also a different kind of pressure on the offense once LJ Martin was out of the running game, because the Cougars had to lean harder on Bear Bachmeier at quarterback to keep drives alive. Bear delivered enough to help BYU win, but the balance of the attack looked different without Martins presence, and that is the sort of thing a staff notices fast in a league where the margins shrink every week. [Read more 🡒]
BYUs National Standing Just Got More Real Before Its Biggest Test
BYUs place in the national conversation keeps getting harder to ignore as the latest AP ballot starts to separate the contenders from the pretenders. With Texas falling to Oklahoma and Georgia taking down Alabama, the top of the college football picture got reshuffled again, and teams like Miami, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Indiana also continue to shape how the race looks week by week. BYU sits right in that mix now, no longer just a feel-good note in the rankings but a team being judged alongside the sports biggest names.
The challenge, of course, is holding that position when the schedule stiffens and every week starts to feel like a referendum. The ballot also reflects how quickly other programs can climb or slip, with UCLA, Utah and Ole Miss part of the broader debate over who belongs where right now. For BYU, the next step is about more than just staying ranked. It is about proving the rise is real when the biggest test arrives. [Read more 🡒]