PROVO, Utah — Following its 43-26 victory at Houston on Friday night to improve to 5-0, BYU football has moved up two spots in both national polls released Sunday. The Cougars are tied for No. 11 in the Amway Coaches Poll and ranked No. 12 in The Associated Press Top 25.
The two rankings are the highest BYU has been ranked in the respective polls under head coach Kalani Sitake and the program's best ranking since 2009 when the Cougars achieved a No. 7 ranking by AP and No. 9 coaches' rating.
The Cougars moved into a tie at No. 11 with Miami in the Coaches Poll. The Hurricanes moved up one spot after a 31-19 win over Pitt to improve to 4-1. The top-10 teams rated by the coaches included No. 1 Clemson (5-0) followed by Alabama (5-0), Notre Dame (4-0), Georgia (3-1), Ohio State (0-0), Oklahoma State (3-0), Penn State (0-0), Florida (2-1), Texas A&M (3-1) and Cincinnati (3-0).
The AP voters rated the top six teams the same before placing Texas A&M into the No. 7 spot followed by Penn State, Cincinnati, and Florida to round out the media's top 10. Miami is alone at No. 11 in the AP poll.
Off to a 5-0 start for the first time since 2008, BYU has been ranked in each of the six regular-season polls released this year. The last time the Cougars were ranked in six consecutive weeks was in 2009 when BYU held a spot in the Top 25 the first eight weeks of the season and was ranked all but one week throughout the year while finishing No. 12 in both polls.
Prior to 2020, the last time BYU was ranked in the top 25 was during the 2018 season when the Cougars were ranked as high as No. 20 after starting the season 3-1 with a victories over Arizona on the road and No. 6 Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium.
This week BYU will host the Texas State Bobcats of the Sun Belt Conference on Saturday in an 8:15 p.m. MDT kickoff televised nationally on ESPN. The game will be played in front of fans for the first time this year at LaVell Edwards Stadium.