Utah/BYU: Big 12 Focuses On Performance Over Predictions This Year

The arriving winds of College Football are felt in multiple ways as the season nears.

For some it’s clearer betting odds, others it’s the yearly release of the college football video game or a published magazine previewing all 136 teams.

For many, it’s the Media days themselves as commissioners, coaches, players and members of teams and media get together to discuss the upcoming season, expectations and so on.

This event typically coincides with “Preseason Polls” where media and coaches predict the finishing order of the conference when the dust settles at the end of the season.

Yet with BYU and Utah’s conference, the Big 12, doing their media day today (the 8^th of July) and tomorrow (the 9^th) there is no preseason polls to be found.

So why isn't the Big 12 doing a Preseason Poll?

Where are the baseless projections, casual guesses and reckless assumptions of what the conference will be in the unpredictable world that is college football?

That's precisely the issue.

Last year’s poll was so off course from the end result that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark thinks it actually damaged Arizona State’s reputation and standing throughout the season.

The Sun Devils of course won the Big 12 and made the inaugural playoff setting, but were often overlooked, potentially tying in to them being picked 16^th out of 16 teams In the conference they won last year.

To demonstrate the topsy-turvy nature of such a thing, Utah was projected to win the conference by the media last year and had their worst season since 2013 with a 2-7 conference record.

Kansas State was pegged as the runner up and finished 8^th in the conference at 5-4.

Oklahoma State clocked in 3^rd and even had 14 first place votes, just to go winless in Big 12 play en route to a last place finish.

To say the mark was missed is an understatement.

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With 4 teams finishing the season at 7-2 in conference play all tied at the top, only one of them was predicted as a top ten team on the preseason media poll, that being Iowa State who was set at sixth.

The others, Arizona State (16^th), BYU (13th) and Colorado (11^th) were all expected to be at the back of the pack, not leading it.

In the world of college football, wins matter, but so does prestige and aura.

In the case of Big 12 commissioner, Brett Yormark, he believes the fun little preseason poll turned into a poison pill for the Devils and their epic run of success when being considered as “real” contenders or not.

To avoid that entirely this year, there will be no poll, there will be no assumptions.

As far as the Big 12 is concerned all teams are starting on an even playing field with nothing to tether them down.

No pressure, no sweat, just results and letting them speak for themselves and by themselves.

And I for one can dig that, now if only the AP Top 25 would wait a couple weeks into the season as well.