{"id":837745,"date":"2026-03-27T21:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/837745\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T21:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:49:18","slug":"espns-initial-sp-rankings-for-byu-utah-and-utah-state-in-2026-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/837745\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN’s initial SP+ rankings for BYU, Utah and Utah State in 2026 \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of the college football season may be five months away, but it\u2019s never too early to look ahead and determine the optimism surrounding Utah\u2019s local teams.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where ESPN\u2019s SP+ rankings<\/a> come in.<\/p>\n

The rankings come from ESPN writer Bill Connelly, who uses returning production, recent history, recent recruiting and coaching changes to calculate how every team in the country stacks up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency,\u201d wrote Connelly<\/a>. \u201cIt is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 ranking. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlong those same lines, these projections aren\u2019t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial rankings for 2026 were released Friday. Here\u2019s a look at where BYU, Utah and Utah State landed and how each school measures up within its conference.<\/p>\n

\"\"Brigham Young University Cougars head coach Kalani Sitake celebrates with his team after they beat the Colorado Buffaloes 24-21 at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News Where do the BYU Cougars rank in ESPN\u2019s initial SP+ rankings?BYU is ranked\u00a0No. 18 overall\u00a0in the SP+ rankings with a\u00a015.5 rating.The Cougars rank No. 16 nationally on offense, No. 20 on defense, and No. 45 on special teams.BYU is ranked\u00a0second among Big 12 teams, behind only defending conference champion Texas Tech (No. 7).\"\"Utah Utes head coach Morgan Scalley and the team celebrate after receiving their trophy for winning the Las Vegas Bowl against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News Where do the Utah Utes rank in ESPN\u2019s initial SP+ rankings?Utah is ranked\u00a0No. 25 overall\u00a0in the SP+ rankings with a\u00a011.9 rating.The Utes rank No. 18 nationally on offense, No. 34 on defense and No. 74 on special teams.Utah is ranked\u00a0third among Big 12 teams, right behind BYU (No. 18) and ahead of Kansas State (No. 29).Big 12 teams in the ESPN initial SP+ rankingsNo. 7: Texas TechNo. 18: BYUNo. 25: UtahNo. 29: Kansas StateNo. 30: ArizonaNo. 34: TCUNo. 36: HoustonNo. 38: Oklahoma StateNo. 42: Arizona StateNo. 50: CincinnatiNo. 51: BaylorNo. 57: KansasNo. 60: UCFNo. 64: Iowa StateNo. 65: ColoradoNo. 66: West Virginia<\/p>\n

As a whole, the Big 12 holds an average rating of 7.4, ranking only behind the SEC and Big Ten as the third-best conference nationally.<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah State head coach Bronco Mendenhall watches the game in the first half, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Logan. | Eli Lucero\/Herald Journal Where do the Utah State Aggies rank in ESPN\u2019s initial SP+ rankings?Utah State is ranked\u00a0No. 97 overall\u00a0in the SP+ rankings with a\u00a0negative 7.7 rating.The Aggies rank No. 87 nationally on offense, No. 100 on defense and No. 117 on special teams.Utah State is ranked\u00a0seventh among the eight Pac-12 teams, behind Oregon State (No. 91) and ahead of Colorado State (No. 99). Pac-12 teams in the ESPN post-spring SP+ rankingsNo. 39: Boise StateNo. 71: San Diego StateNo. 78: Fresno StateNo. 85: Washington StateNo. 89: Texas StateNo. 91: Oregon StateNo. 97: Utah StateNo. 99: Colorado State<\/p>\n

As a whole, the Pac-12 holds an average rating of negative 3.7, ranking only behind the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC as the fifth-best conference nationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The start of the college football season may be five months away, but it\u2019s never too early to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48,3309],"class_list":{"0":"post-837745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-news-feed-local"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}