Big 12 beat writers vote their own preseason top spot, with BYU viewed as the early favorite

The Big 12’s preseason rankings cycle is taking a more independent turn. For the second straight year, the conference declined to conduct and publish a preseason football poll, leaving fans and media without the league-endorsed number-one team for 2026. In its place, beat writers who cover Big 12 football put together their own preseason poll last week, arriving at an early consensus about where the title picture could be headed.

According to the report, BYU emerged as the team most writers favored, positioned at No. 1 or very close to it in the newly created poll. The implication is straightforward: even without a Big 12-issued preseason forecast, the league’s surrounding ecosystem appears to view BYU as a program with a realistic path to finishing first in the standings, not merely competing for a mid-tier bowl berth. It is a public report that BYU’s 2026 outlook is being treated like a conference-top storyline.

The timing matters. The writers’ poll was compiled during the same general preseason media stretch in which Big 12 teams are discussing expectations, personnel strengths, and the kind of football they plan to play. The report specifically ties BYU’s ranking conversation to BYU head coach Kalani Sitake’s appearance at Big 12 football media days, where he had repeated opportunities to address BYU being picked to finish at the top, or near the top, of the conference standings.

Sitake’s message, as described in the report, was a reminder that preseason prognostications rarely land exactly where people think they will. That kind of caution is common in college football, but it is also meaningful in a league like the Big 12, where the standings can swing quickly due to turnover, the volatility of early-season matchups, and the reality that one or two breaks can change the entire order of finish. The coach’s response also underscores the difference between an outsider’s early vote and what a team can actually prove over a full slate.

The Big 12’s decision not to run a formal preseason poll also changes the tone of expectation-setting. When conferences do release official preseason rankings, those numbers can become a recurring narrative reference point for the entire season. By not doing so again in 2026, the Big 12 has created more room for outside rankings to define the early conversation, including this writers’ poll. It shifts the “where do you sit?” question from the conference’s front office to the beat’s day-to-day assessments.

For BYU and the rest of the league, the practical challenge is the same no matter how the preseason ranking gets produced: early status increases scrutiny, and it raises the cost of mistakes. If BYU truly is viewed as the top team by conference-adjacent observers, then the on-field test will be whether the program can turn that confidence into consistent results against Big 12 opponents across the season’s full run. A preseason vote can frame expectations, but it does not account for in-season adjustments or the way matchups develop week to week.

Looking ahead, the next benchmark will not be another poll or media-day storyline. It will be how BYU and the teams around it handle the first wave of games that shape conference positioning. If the early writers’ view proves accurate, BYU will have validated its status as a standings favorite. If it does not, the league’s decision to skip an official poll may actually make the eventual “who was right?” debate more about actual head-to-head outcomes than about who was first in July.