​This article was first published in the Cougar Insiders newsletter Tuesday. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each week.The Big 12 just finished its summer football media days in Frisco, Texas, one of the last official conference functions before teams kick off fall practices at the end of July and beginning of August.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHere is my roundup of many of the key issues discussed in Frisco.One of the more interesting aspects of the meeting is that the league declined to do a preseason poll of how reporters think the league will turn out.Again.Of course, it doesn’t mean much, but it is a fun, albeit kind of political, exercise of these events. It creates interest and a buzz. It also can be a trigger for pride for one team and tick off the others as they see it as a lack of respect.Longtime Oklahoma-based columnist Barry Tramel picked BYU to win the Big 12 in his opinion published in the Tulsa World.In his predicted order of finish for the 2026 season, he placed BYU No. 1, followed by Texas Tech No. 2. He cited strong confidence in coach Kalani Sitake’s program, the development of quarterback Bear Bachmeier (after freshman growing pains in 2025), and the situation at Texas Tech (including uncertainty at QB). He viewed Utah and Arizona as the next strongest challengers ahead of teams like Houston.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPreseason polls are a rite of passage at this time of summer, and while meaningless, they do portray a mindset of what the public, media and coaches believe about the credibility of teams and leagues. Texas Tech is favored to win the Big 12 with BYU predicted to be right there. What do you make of Big 12 football preseason sentiment and what do you believe today?Jay Drew: Preseason polls are mostly meaningless, but in a way they do impact what is really important in college football — the rankings compiled by the College Football Playoff committee. Committee members are human, too, and I’m sure they sneak a peek at some rankings, probably the AP Top 25 poll, before they make their first selections the first Tuesday of November.This year, that’s probably good news for BYU, because the Cougars almost assuredly will be in the top 25 when the preseason AP rankings are released in the middle of August. Last year, BYU started the season at No. 23 in the coaches poll, and slowly climbed into the top 10 before losing to Texas Tech.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMy biggest takeaway from the Big 12 preseason polls published to date — the league itself did not conduct one for the second straight year — is that BYU enters the 2026 season with a lot of respect.In almost every poll I’ve seen, and in the one I participated in, BYU is picked to finish second, behind only Texas Tech, though some folks believe that BYU should be No. 1 due to Tech’s quarterback uncertainty.I picked Texas Tech to win the league on my ballot, mostly because I think Will Hammond is more