Report confirms BYU football is the nation's most underrated program, validating years of Cougar fans' slights

As BYU fans, we can file this under "Color us shocked! Shocked!"

According to On3's national college football writer Brett McMurphy, BYU has been the most underrated team in the AP Poll since 2014.

Going back over a decade now, no team has been more disrespected, doubted, overlooked, and undervalued by the AP Poll than the BYU Cougars. Not surprisingly, other "non-blue bloods" follow in Northwestern, Boise State, TCU, Iowa, and Indiana.

The disrespect BYU has received from the national media is more than frustrating. It feels personal or deliberate. Despite a consensus 1984 national championship, a Heisman Trophy winner, and being ranked somewhere in the Top 25 during eight of the last 13 seasons, voters in the AP Poll have withheld more love from the Cougars than any other team in the nation.

Why has BYU been so disrespected by the national media?

Going back to 2014 there are three main reasons BYU has been so overlooked by the national media.

First, the Cougars were a football independent from 2011 until 2022. In extending an olive branch of fairness to the AP voters, it was tough many years to accurately assess a BYU team that was playing the likes Utah Tech, Georgia Southern, and North Alabama late in the year.

Second, as an independent BYU's strength of schedule wasn't consistently strong. From 2016 to 2019 the Cougars strength of schedule was somewhere in the 70s of about 128 teams. In 2021 it was 63rd and in 2022 it was 69th. But things changed when BYU joined the Big 12 in 2023. That season BYU' strength of schedule was 34th, though it dropped back to 62nd last year.

Lastly, AP voters are human and subject to bias. SEC and Big Ten teams are generally given the benefit of the doubt, while teams from other conferences are not. Most teams outside of those two conferences begin the season with a "guilty until proven innocent" sentencing before embarking on a season-long slog to prove they belong among the elite in the nation. As noted in McMurphy's tweet above, eight of the 10 most overrated teams currently play in the SEC or Big Ten, which comes as no surprise to fans of other conferences.

On the topic of bias, the perception of a prevailing east coast bias in the media is probably a real thing, too. I live in North Carolina and can promise you that national media members who live in the Eastern time zone are not staying up until 1:45 AM to watch the conclusion of BYU games that kick off at a ridiculous 10:30 PM. It's hard for the national media to wake up to BYU's excellence when they're already asleep by halftime.

Will BYU get more respect in the future?

The best way for BYU to get the national respect it deserves from AP voters is to consistently win on a national stage. They did so last year going 11-2, just missing a conference championship game appearance, obliterating Colorado in the Alamo Bowl, and finishing No. 13 in the country.

If Kalani Sitake's squad can have a similar season this year, that will go a long way in winning over skeptics in the national media.

If BYU falls to 7-5 this year and loses in an irrelevant bowl game, the goodwill from last year will quickly evaporate.

But what's trending in the right direction at the macro level for BYU is they are no longer wandering in the wilderness of football independence. They are competitive members of a Power Four conference. This seismic shift changes the entire landscape. BYU's strength of schedule will improve as will the talent the Cougars are now attracting. The national media will pay more attention to the Cougars as they compete for a meaningful conference title and win meaningful bowl games.

BYU fans have preached from the rooftops for years that the Cougars have been underrated.

Brett McMurphy has now validated that point.

It's now up to the BYU football program to prove the national narrative about them wrong. They have the perfect opportunity in 2025 to do just that.

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