BYU football's 2026 season is beginning exactly according to plan. It's a program that approached week one as a contender for the Big 12 Conference championship, and after handling business against a hungry Arizona team -- a team that had their matchup against BYU "circled" on the calendar since the schedule was released -- the Cougars appear to be right on track toward their ultimate goal of the College Football Playoff.
But there's one more question surrounding the Cougars that they'll have to answer over the next two weeks: How do they perform in a hostile road environment?
BYU can answer that by winning in Fort Collins on Saturday, facing off against the newly-instated Pac-12 member Colorado State.
The Big 12 hasn't exactly been rock-solid against Pac-12 schools through two weeks.
After bumping up the AP Poll Top 25 this weekend (skipping the line from 14th overall to 11th), BYU is now the highest-ranked team in the Big 12 Conference, leaving behind the struggling Texas Tech Red Raiders, who are ranked 13th after a nail-biting win against longtime Pac-12 resident Oregon State.
Optics are everything in the sport of college football, and seeing Tech fall behind 21-24 late in that game was not a good look for the Big 12 Conference, a league that has been clawing for national respect in recent years. They can only dab up the dew left in the wake of SEC and Big Ten powerhouses since the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams -- the Big 12 has been a one-bid league since the bracket blossomed in 2024-25.
There may be zero at-large bids for this Power Four conference, if history repeats itself, and BYU has no intention of remaining on the outside looking in like they have in the last two years, despite going 23-4 overall -- a top-five record in the nation over that span.
And they can continue to stuff their resume if they can dominate against a lesser Colorado State team.
The Rams are an old friend of BYU's from the Mountain West Conference days. The Cougars currently hold a 7-game winning streak against CSU that spans from 2004 to 2010. The pair haven't met on the field since BYU left the MWC, and now both programs have moved on to bigger and better things.
But despite the conference upgrade and a 2-0 record approaching this matchup, BYU should be the heavy favorites in this game.
CSU took down Southern Utah and Wyoming in the matchups leading into this game, but they don't have anything that posed as great a threat as Arizona, a team that the Cougars shut out for the second half and would have won 35-17 if Kalani Sitake didn't elect to kneel out the game from the five-yard line like a gentleman.
But the wild card factor here will be the road crowd. And they couldn't have asked for a better time to warm up for a road test than week 3, because they face TCU in Fort Worth the following weekend.
Game information for BYU football vs Colorado State
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM MT
Location: Canvas Stadium, Fort Collins, CO
Channel: CBS
Odds: BYU -21
Streaming Link: FuboTV
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