PROVO, Utah — BYU received a No. 10 ranking in both The Associated Press Top 25 and AFCA Coaches Poll on Sunday after improving to 8-0 with its 41-27 road win at Iowa State on Saturday.
Media voters moved the unbeaten Cougars one spot into a tie at No. 10 with Miami, who dropped a spot from No. 9, while the coaches maintained each of their top-10 teams with BYU again voted at No. 10 for the second straight week.
Starting Strong
At 8-0 overall and 5-0 in the Big 12 Conference, the Cougars have achieved back-to-back 8-0 starts for the first time in BYU history and won their first eight games for the third time overall under head coach Kalani Sitake. Historically, the Cougars have started started 8-0 during six seasons (2025, 2024, and 2020 under Sitake; 2001 under Gary Crowton; and 1984 and 1979 under Hall of Fame coach LaVell Edwards).
BYU was last ranked in the top 10 in both polls last year when the Cougars were rated No. 7 by AP and No. 8 by the coaches with a 9-0 record in the polls release Nov. 10, 2024. The Cougars have been ranked 298 times overall in the AP poll since the program's first national ranking in 1974.
Big 12 Milestone
The Big 12 has five teams in this week's top 25, marking the first time the conference has had five ranked programs in the month of October since 2022. In addition to the Cougars at No. 10, Texas Tech (7-1, 4-1) moving up to No. 13 in both polls followed by Cincinnati (7-1, 5-0) jumping to No. 16 (AFCA) and No. 17 (AP), while Houston (7-1, 4-1) and Utah (6-2, 3-2) both entered this week's rankings at No. 22 and No. 24, respectively. Two additional Big 12 teams, TCU (6-2, 3-2) and Arizona State (5-3, 3-2), received votes from the coaches, with the Sun Devils falling out of last week's top 25.
Top 10 Peers
AP again kept Ohio State (7-0) at No. 1, followed by Indiana (8-0), Texas A&M (8-0), Alabama (7-1), Georgia (6-1) and Oregon (7-1) before flip-flopping Ole MIss (7-1) to No. 7 and Georgia Tech (8-0) to No. 8. Last week's No. 10 Vanderbilt (7-1) moved to No. 9 with previous No. 9 Miami falling into a tie with BYU at No. 10. The AFCA top 10 was unchanged, matching AP on the top six teams while keeping Georgia Tech at No. 7, Ole Miss at No. 8 and Miami at No. 9 with Vanderbilt again at No. 11 after BYU.
Double-Digit Streaks
The Cougars join Ohio State and the Naval Academy as the only FBS programs with an active winning streak of 10 or more games. The Buckeyes own the nation's longest active victory streak at 11 games dating back to last season's national championship run, followed by BYU and Navy (7-0, 5-0 American) with 10 consecutive truimphs over the past two seasons.
Up Next
This week BYU has a bye before returning to action on the road for its fifth away matchup of the season at nationally ranked Texas Tech in Lubbock. This year the Cougars have road victories at East Carolina (34-13), Colorado (24-21), Arizona (33-27 2OT) and Iowa State (41-27) along with home wins over Portland State (69-0), Stanford (27-3), West Virginia (38-24) and then No. 23/22 Utah (24-21).