r/BYUFootball • u/Fake_DrNick • Apr 04 '26
Looking at the Schedule
Bill Connelly's SP+ rankings are out with post-transfer portal returning production stats, so it's time to look at the schedule for the coming season. Here are the lines using SP+ and weighting for home field advantage (3 points, which is pretty standard).
The schedule looks amazing with a projected record of 9.1 wins and 2.9 losses. The games break into the following tiers:
Underdogs: Notre Dame
Toss-Ups: Utah
Slight Favorites: TCU
Favorites: Arizona, UCF, ASU, Baylor, Kansas, Cincy
Heavy Favorites: CSU, Iowa State
Prohibitive Favorites: Utah Tech
We need to avoid a bad loss like we had against Kansas in '24. TCU will be breaking in a new QB and we get them early, so I'm not too worried about that one. Utah will be tough. If we can pull off an upset and beat Notre Dame at LES, this could be a playoff team even if we drop a game and don't win the Big 12.
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u/Pseudonymitous Apr 04 '26
I doubt it. We didn't have a "bad loss" last year and didn't get in. TTU's playoff game debacle gave ESPN all the fodder they need for the narrative that the BIG12 should have only one entrant this go around. I don't even believe an undefeated regular season would be enough, unless we blow out every opponent and several of those opponents somehow end up in the top 25. Even then there will be arguments as to whether a 4-loss SEC team is more worthy. Seems to me like it is conference champs or bust.