BYU beat Notre Dame in a top-10 battle Saturday evening, and Josh Furlong answered with a bold move on his Top 25 ballot: he put the Cougars at No. 1. The ballot, submitted to the for the consensus rankings released Sunday afternoon, gave BYU the top spot after a weekend that reshuffled the national picture.
That is why the BYU ranking is drawing attention now. Furlong said there was a case for Miami to be No. 1, and he kept the Hurricanes at No. 2. He also said Ohio State had an argument for the top spot after its win over Indiana, which shows how crowded the race for first had become before the ballots were counted.
Furlong did not make the choice lightly. He wrote that BYU was “as good as any right now to occupy the top spot,” a judgment tied directly to the Cougars’ win over Notre Dame. In his ballot, Notre Dame fell to No. 5 after the close loss, a reminder that a strong showing in a marquee game can still leave a team behind when the margins are this thin.
The rest of Furlong’s rankings underline how much movement Saturday created. He wrote that UCLA was the last undefeated team from the Big Ten, and he said Texas Tech looked like a formidable team after a blowout win over Arizona State. Even then, he said he had long kept Texas Tech behind BYU and Utah this season, which shows how much weight he gave the Cougars’ profile after Saturday night.
There is still a gap between one voter’s ballot and the final consensus ranking, which is why the Sunday afternoon release matters. Furlong’s vote placed BYU at the top, but the full ranking would show whether that view held across the wider panel or whether Miami, Ohio State or someone else ultimately won the week’s argument.
