After great anticipation and some terrific predictions by the good folks at Lawless Republic, the first official edition of the AP Poll Top 25 has been released. BYU football fans watched as the Coaches Poll listed the Cougars as the 23rd overall program entering the year, silently wondering if this was the season that their beloved Provo-based football team received preseason respect.
Respect in the preseason, while it isn't everything, does carry plenty of momentum into the way a team is perceived for the remainder of year, especially for oft overlooked squads like that of BYU. It took nine weeks of winning for the team to breach the top 6 in 2024, a season where preseason acclaim was hard to come by for Kalani Sitake, Jake Retzlaff, and BYU football.
Of course, that team did still break into the top 10 of the College Football Playoff rankings despite their silent beginnings, and the season was still a nationally recognized success. All's well that ends well, apparently.
Or so we may have thought.
BREAKING: Preseason College Football AP Poll🚨https://t.co/O9s1jHORyn pic.twitter.com/reBHuc3tL8
— On3 (@On3sports) August 11, 2025
With the release of the preseason top 25 poll, one name was left mysteriously absent in the final tally: BYU football. It's happened before, it's happening now, it will happen again. BYU football is entering the season completely underrated.
ESPN has already made their views of last year's success perfectly clear, suggesting that this team was one that reached the Alamo Bowl and an 11-win season by dumb luck and narrow victories. By their math, this is a team with unstable footing that is bound to give way in 2025.
AP voters seem to largely feel the same way. Still, some outliers exist, two of which have the Cougars sitting within the top 10 in their submissions. BYU now sits as the highest vote collector outside the top 25, directly ahead of their rival to the north, Utah, who looks to make a BYU-esque leap in their second season of Big 12 membership.
Still, these numbers are just that: numbers. And while the records read 0-0, no one's opinion matters more than what happens when these teams take the field.
BYU owns one of the most favorable on-paper schedules for the opening four weeks of the year, and a 4-0 start is absolutely within reach. Assuming no slip-ups in the early stretch, the Cougars are poised to pounce into the rankings in the near future.