BYU’s preseason buzz is real, and Athlon Sports made that clear with its 2026 All-Big 12 team.
The Cougars landed 13 players on the magazine’s preseason conference list, with four of them also earning All-America recognition. Senior running back LJ Martin and senior center Bruce Mitchell were named to the Athlon Sports 2026 All-America Third Team, while junior safety Faletau Satuala and senior linebacker Cade Uluave made the Fourth Team.
Martin enters the season as the reigning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, and Mitchell gives BYU another anchor up front after both were included among the publication’s national honorees. Satuala’s spot on the list follows a sophomore year that brought second-team All-America honors from the Football Writers Association of America. Uluave, meanwhile, arrives in Provo after earning first-team All-ACC recognition last season at Cal.
BYU also placed senior cornerback Evan Johnson on the Athlon Sports 2026 All-Big 12 First Team. Johnson tied for the Big 12 lead with five interceptions last season, making him one of the conference’s most productive playmakers in the secondary.
The Cougars’ recognition didn’t stop there. Eight more BYU players showed up across Athlon’s second, third and fourth teams, giving the program seven defensive selections and six offensive selections overall.
On the second team, linebacker Isaiah Glasker, defensive end Bodie Schoonover and offensive lineman Kyle Sfarcioc were honored. The third team included defensive lineman Keanu Tanuvasa, cornerback Therrian Alexander III and offensive lineman Andrew Gentry. Quarterback Bear Bachmeier and wide receiver Jojo Phillips landed on the fourth team.
The preseason nods also line up with what BYU has already shown on the field. Glasker was a third-team All-Big 12 linebacker last season, while Johnson, Tanuvasa and Schoonover all received All-Big 12 honorable mention. Bachmeier, in his true freshman season at quarterback, was the 2025 Big 12 Freshman of the Year and a semifinalist for the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.
The backdrop matters here, too. BYU is coming off a 2025 season in which it reached 12 wins for the fifth time in school history and the first time since 2001. The Cougars also closed the year with their second straight bowl win over a ranked opponent, beating Georgia Tech of the ACC.
That 2024-25 stretch has been one of the best two-year runs in program history. BYU’s 23 wins over those seasons trail only the 24-win stretches in 1983-84 and 1984-85, the latter of which came during the Cougars’ 1984 national championship run.
Last season also brought a few more milestones. BYU’s five wins against teams with nine wins or more set a program record, and its seven wins over teams with winning records were the second-most in school history, behind only the eight in 1980. The Cougars’ FBS opponents finished 102-64, a .614 winning percentage, and BYU’s 10 wins against Power 4 opponents set another school record, topping the nine it posted in 2024.
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