The preseason AP Top 25 put a spotlight on Utah football before the season even gets rolling, with BYU landing at No. 14 and Utah coming in at No. 21.
For BYU, the ranking reflects a program that already proved it could hang last season. The Cougars reached the Big 12 championship game and bring back several starters, giving them plenty of buzz as they enter the year three spots below their final No. 11 ranking from last season. Second-year starter Bear Bachmeier is set to steer the offense after gaining a full season of experience, and he’ll have LJ Martin back in the backfield after the running back passed on an NFL opportunity to return to Provo.
There’s been one major change on the BYU sideline: defensive coordinator Jay Hill is gone to Michigan, and Kelly Poppinga has taken over the job. Even so, the defense is expected to look familiar.
The bulk of the unit is back, and the Cougars also added Power Four experience through the transfer portal, including linebacker Cade Uluave from Cal. That combination has plenty of preseason observers thinking BYU could make another run to Arlington, Texas, for a shot at the Big 12 title.
Utah enters the season in a different spot, but still in the national conversation. The Utes checked in at No. 21, seven places lower than their final No. 14 ranking last year, and they do it during an offseason marked by change. Still, there’s a sense of continuity in Morgan Scalley’s first season as head coach.
A lot of Utah’s outlook starts with Devon Dampier. The multi-year starter at quarterback is expected to carry a huge load after guiding an 11-2 season behind one of the school’s strongest offensive lines in recent memory. Byrd Ficklin gives the Utes another option at quarterback, while Wayshawn Parker adds punch to the ground game and the receiver room looks much improved.
Defensively, Utah has work to do. Several starters are gone, but the program is banking on transfer-portal additions and a renewed emphasis on stopping the run.
For now, AP voters are willing to buy in. Scalley and his staff still have to prove the Utes belong with the country’s best.
Texas Tech sits atop the Big 12 at No. 12, while Houston also cracked the poll at No. 23, giving the league four ranked teams in all with BYU and Utah included. The Red Raiders enter under a cloud after offseason scrutiny tied to a gambling investigation involving transfer quarterback Brendan Sorsby, who later left the program to pursue an NFL career. Backup quarterback, though not fully recovered from an ACL injury last season, is expected to start.
Texas Tech’s schedule sets up well, and the roster remains loaded enough that a repeat conference title run is very much on the table. Still, the bigger question around the league is whether anyone can separate from the pack.
That’s the larger challenge for the Big 12 as a whole. The conference continues to chase the sport’s center of gravity, with the Big Ten and SEC combining for 17 of the 25 spots in the preseason poll.
The Big 12 has four teams ranked, but the path to real national relevance still runs through the playoff. No Big 12 team has won a national title since Texas in 2005, and Texas is now in the SEC.
Among the league’s current members, Colorado is the last to claim one, back in 1990.
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The preseason ranking also places Utah among four Big 12 teams in the AP poll, reinforcing the sense that the Utes are being viewed as a real contender even while the roster and staff settle into new roles. There is still plenty to prove about how this transition will look once the games count, especially with so much structural change around Scalley, but the league landscape leaves little room for a slow start. Utah is being treated like a team that can compete right away, and now it has to show it can handle that burden. [Read more 🡒]