BYU football is 4-0 through Week 5, and is currently ranked 8th in the country, depending on whether you observe the authority of the AP Top 25 (they're becoming less popular by the day, aren't they?). It doesn't feel real to see a BYU football team get the benefit of the doubt -- nor can I properly digest the fact that BYU, Texas Tech, and Utah are all ranked in the top 12 at the same time.
And with just one game standing in the way of a top-10 clash against Notre Dame next weekend, BYU will do battle with an Iowa State team off to a stronger start than anticipated before the start of the season.
After losing Matt Campbell to Penn State (the Nittany Lions' second choice, as was made perfectly apparent this last offseason), Iowa State was expected to plummet back to the bottom of the Big 12 standings. Considering the team's history, that was a fair prediction.
But the Cyclones are no pushover, and they made that perfectly clear by opening the season 3-2 with losses to a very strong Iowa team and a quickly rising Ute squad. They nearly beat their in-state rivals from the Big Ten. They were less successful when Utah came to Ames.
Now, against BYU, this is the Cyclones' last chance to make a statement and claim a stake in the hunt for the Big 12 Championship. The bad news is that they'll have to do it in Provo, a setting where the Cougars have lost just one game since the start of the 2024 season. There's good reason why Kalani Sitake's program is favored by two touchdowns.
BYU's quest for a Big 12 title and a CFP berth goes through Iowa State in Week 6. We'll see if they can impress following an awkward evening against TCU.
Thanks to a Friday night kickoff, we'll get to see the Cougars in action a little earlier.
How to watch BYU vs Iowa State:
Date: Friday, October 9, 2026
Time: 8:15 PM MT
Location: LaVell Edwards Stadium, Provo, UT
Channel: ESPN
Odds: BYU -14.5
For the record, I'm including the odds as a point of reference for how this game is expected to play out, not to promote gambling. Considering recent discourse from LDS General Conference, I don't want to be misunderstood.
Add us as a preferred source on Google