Most BYU fans feel like the Cougars were deliberately frozen out of the last two College Football Playoffs, and there's plenty of evidence to support that narrative. Whether it was the CFP selection committee doubting the team's strength of schedule or ESPN somehow forgetting BYU even existed, it has felt like the Cougs have been fighting against the "college football blueblood industrial complex" over the last two years.
But everything will change in 2026, and the Cougars will have zero excuses if they once again end up as a CFP bridesmaid this year. There are two reasons for this.
First, BYU should begin the season ranked comfortably inside the Top 20.
Second, the Cougars have a marquee game against Notre Dame.
BYU's preseason rating
College football preseason ratings are both stupid and massively important.
They're stupid because nobody knows before the season begins just how good -- or bad -- any team is going to be. Last year, for example, preseason No. 1 Texas missed the College Football Playoffs. Preseason No. 2 Penn State went 7-6, including a 3-6 conference record. No. 4 Clemson went 7-6 with a 4-4 record in the ACC. LSU's preseason rank was No. 9 and they finished 7-6 with a 3-5 conference record.
BYU, on the other hand, started unranked last year and didn't crack the Top 25 until Week 5, and even then it was as the No. 25 team in the nation. The rest of what remained of the season was an uphill slog trying to prove the Cougars belonged.
The Cougars have traditionally started as "the outsiders looking in" by getting shafted in the preseason polls, then swimming against the current to try to gain national credibility.
That shouldn't happen in 2026.
In the recently released Coaches Poll, BYU is ranked No. 15. The AP Poll will come out next week, and the Cougars should be ranked somewhere comfortably within the Top 20.
Think of a preseason ranking somewhere near No. 15 as a large family's Thanksgiving dinner. With the Cougars ranked somewhere near the Top 15, they will begin the season at the "adults' table." They will now just need to jostle with the other adults for the best pieces of turkey and the biggest slices of pie. In previous years as an unranked team, BYU has started off the season at the "kids' table" and spent most of the dinner trying to prove to the adults how annoyingly smart they were about current events, desperately hoping somebody would allow them to pull up a chair.
BYU is 23-4 over the last two seasons and is poised for a monster season.
For once, the Cougars will start the season as a program that belongs at the adults' table.
The marquee Notre Dame game barometer
The second reason BYU should have no excuses for missing the CFP this year comes down to one opponent:
Notre Dame.
The Cougars' problem over the last two seasons is that while they are 23-4, they haven't had many nationally-credible signature wins. Over the last two seasons their biggest wins have been against an then-overrated No. 13 Kansas State team, No. 20 Colorado, No. 23 Utah, and No. 24 Georgia Tech.
BYU's four losses have come against an unranked Kansas team (ugh, don't remind me) and three losses to eventual Big 12 champions. They fell to No. 20 Arizona State in 2024 and twice last year to a top-10 Texas Tech team.
In other words, while BYU has done a lot of winning, they don't have any marquee wins that require the national media to stop in their tracks and take notice. While BYU has been beating teams ranked in the 20s, elite CFP teams should regularly do this.
Elite CPS teams also need to win Top 10 matchups, and BYU's matchup with Notre Dame this year will finally give BYU the chance to win a massive non-Big 12 game on the national stage. Kudos to BYU's administration for getting this game on the schedule.
Now Kalani Sitake's squad just needs to beat the Irish, which is something they can do with the game being played in Provo.
If BYU can beat Notre Dame, even if they stumble once or twice after that and end up on the fringes of the CFP debate, the national media will have to say, "Well, the Cougs did beat Notre Dame...." and that statement alone will carry a ton of weight and credibility.
When looking back on BYU's 1984 national championship, they beat then-No. 3 Pitt in the first game of the season. This game was extremely important for BYU's credibility early on. First, this game was ESPN's first ever live college football broadcast, so the eyes of the nation were on the Cougs. Second, while Pitt was ranked No. 3 in the preseason, they went on to have a terrible 3-7-1 campaign that year. But until the national media recognized Pitt was massively overrated, the victory gave BYU a ton of credibility right out of the gate. It quickly got the Cougars to the "adults' table."
BYU has a golden opportunity this year against the "golden domers."
With a Top 20 ranking to start the season and a marquee victory over Notre Dame, the Cougars will have zero excuses if they fail to make this year's CFP.
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