​During Big 12 media days last week, coach Kalani Sitake seized every chance to remind reporters that predictions rarely hit the mark when it comes to BYU’s placement in the conference standings for 2026. “They are wrong every time, so they stopped making predictions as a league,” Sitake quipped. “They don’t do it anymore.” He’s not wrong. I don’t make all the calls about how many teams make the playoffs, and I’m not in the business of lobbying for that either. We just have to focus on our duties, play our best, and see what happens.
In the Big 12, preseason predictions were so off in 2024 that the league scrapped its 2025 preseason media poll, and there wasn’t one this year either. The Frisco, Texas gathering wrapped up with a preseason all-conference team and individual accolades, but no official team rankings. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. A process sparked by Berry Tramel of the Tulsa World brought beat writers from the league’s 16 teams together to conduct their own poll. There were 16 voters—one from each school.
Locally, I was selected as the BYU beat writer to participate, with Jason Batacao of The Salt Lake Tribune representing the University of Utah. Points were allocated on a 16-15-14-13 scale, meaning first-place votes carried 16 points, second-place 15, and so on. There seemed to be considerable momentum at The Star for BYU to supplant Texas Tech as the preseason favorite, at least among the writers I spoke with, particularly after the Brendan Sorsby situation left the Red Raiders’ quarterback situation uncertain. No luck. Texas Tech ended up with 14 first-place votes, 254 points, and clearly topped our poll to repeat as champions. BYU, which has a more settled quarterback position, secured the other two first-place votes and finished with 239 points, placing them solidly in second.
Arizona, which will visit BYU in Week 2 in what promises to be a colossal Big 12 opener in Provo, and Houston tied for third with 207 points. Utah earned 198 points and was projected to finish fifth. See the full poll results and the complete list of voters below. As noted earlier, Sitake dismisses preseason polls out of hand. He reminded folks in Texas that two years ago BYU was pegged to finish 13th while Arizona State landed at 16th. Those two teams tied with Iowa State (picked sixth) and Colorado (picked 11th) for the regular-season conference title, while preseason favorite Utah—hampered by quarterback injuries—tied for 13th with Arizona and UCF. In other words, the official Big 12 preseason poll effectively ceased to be relevant after that season. For now, BYU fans can cling to one reality: preseason prognostications don’t define the season, and the team will have to prove itself on the field.