PROVO, Utah — BYU remained at No. 11 in both The Associated Press Top 25 and AFCA Coaches Poll released on Sunday after improving to 10-1 with a 26-14 victory at Cincinnati on Saturday night.
The Cougars (10-1, 7-1 Big 12) achieved the 20th 10-win season in school history on Saturday, accomplishing the feat for the fourth time under head coach Kalani Sitake. BYU has had back-to-back 10-win campaigns under Sitake in 2025 and 2024 and 2021 and 2020. The road to the 10 wins has been forged with FBS standard-setting play away from Provo as the Cougars are the only school in the country with four road wins over bowl-eligble teams (East Carolina, 7-4; Arizona, 8-3; Iowa State (7-4); Cincinnati, 7-4).
BYU remains knocking on the door of the top 10, however, where it previously spent two weeks in the AP's top 10 and three weeks in the top 10 of the AFCA Poll while building an 8-0 start to the season. The Cougars have responded with two straight wins over bowl-bound teams in TCU and Cincinnati since their lone setback of the season at top-10 ranked Texas Tech. BYU has been ranked 302 times overall in the AP poll since the program's first national ranking in 1974.
The Cougars were also ranked No. 11 in last week's College Football Playoff rankings, which will be updated based on this weekend's results on Tuesday by the CFP Committee.
Little Movement in Top 10
The coaches didn't change the order of the 10 teams ranked ahead of BYU this week, while AP voters moved Oregon (10-1) up one ranking to No. 5 and adjusted Ole Miss (10-1) and Texas Tech (10-1) back one spot to No. 6 and No. 7, respectively.
Ohio State (11-0), Indiana (11-0), Texas A&M (11-0) and Georgia (10-1) are again the highest ranked teams. The movement in the AP poll elevating Oregon matched what the AFCA maintained from last week with The Ducks, Rebels and Red Raiders being followed by No. 8 Oklahoma (9-2), No. 9 Notre Dame (9-2) and No. 10 Alabama (9-2) rated just ahead of No. 11 BYU (10-1) by the voters.
Race to Arlington
The upcoming final weekend of the Big 12 Championship race features No.7 Texas Tech (7-1) and No. 11 BYU (7-1) as teams with only one league defeat, followed by two two-loss teams in reigning league champion Arizona State (6-2) and No. 14 Utah (6-2). The Sun Devils as well as Arizona are receiving votes just outside the top 25 this week. BYU and Texas Tech can claim their tickets in the Dec. 6 Big 12 Championship game with wins this week. Utah and ASU both still have a chance to earn a place in the title game pending various tiebreakers if the results of this weekend's games create ties for a berth in the championship by two or more teams at 7-2 in the final standings.
Senior Day on Saturday
This week BYU hosts the UCF Knights at 11 a.m. MT on ESPN2 for senior day in LaVell Edwards Stadium. The Cougars are perfect in five sellout home games to date this season in LaVell Edwards Stadium with wins over Portland State (69-0), Stanford (27-3), West Virginia (38-24), then No. 23/22 Utah (24-21), and TCU (44-13).
BYU finished the regular season 5-1 on the road with wins at East Carolina (34-13), Colorado (24-21), Arizona (33-27 2OT) and Iowa State (41-27) and Cincinnati (26-14) with a lone setback at then No. 8 Texas Tech (29-7).