pundits and national media underestimating us. Every year for the last decade of independence I heard preseason predictions about how BYU was about to go 6-6.

The only time I can think of when we actually did not meet expectations was last year, when we started in the preseason top 25.

But I remember seeing a stat last year about “most underrated teams in history” or something like that, and it was based on how many times a team started unranked and finished ranked. And BYU was atop the list! For whatever reason, people always think BYU is gonna suck. And then we don’t, but people still never learn. Maybe it was the non-P5 bias, and I hope that changes now being in a P5. Utah has certainly had the opposite experience over the last couple of years. I still can’t wrap my head around how they went 10-4 in 2021 and started last season at #7. Then they lost their first game to an unranked team, and it still basically had no effect. Wild times.