{"id":299166,"date":"2025-11-18T13:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T13:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299166\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T13:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T13:38:08","slug":"dave-portnoy-fights-for-byu-to-make-the-college-football-playoff-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299166\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy fights for BYU to make the College Football Playoff \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy came to Provo for Fox \u201cBig Noon Kickoff\u201d and got his first taste of BYU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Portnoy has become a crusader of sorts for the Cougars, using his various platforms to lobby on their behalf over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

As \u201cBig Noon\u201d heads to Cincinnati this week<\/a> for BYU\u2019s massive matchup with the Bearcats, Portnoy took some time on FS1\u2019s \u201cWake Up Barstool\u201d show Monday to address any and all critics of the Cougars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve lost one game, and they lost it to a potential national championship team on the road, OK?\u201d Portnoy said, referring to BYU\u2019s lone setback against Texas Tech. \u201cEverybody is like, \u2018Here\u2019s the end of BYU, TCU is gonna come in and beat BYU!\u2019 And you know what BYU did? They destroyed this team, they beat them 44-13. They\u2019re 9-1, they\u2019re a top-10 team.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Portnoy\u2019s cohosts, Liam Blutman, agreed with the assessment and offered praise for Cougars head coach Kalani Sitake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey go out there and they once again assert physical dominance,\u201d Blutman said of BYU\u2019s win over TCU. \u201cKalani Sitake once again proves why he\u2019s one of the most underrated coaches in the country, he\u2019s definitely a top-10 coach in the sport, and he should be considered more for some of these top (head coach openings).<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he should never leave, he should never leave his castle. He\u2019s the king of Provo.\u201d<\/p>\n

BYU came in at No. 12 in last week\u2019s College Football Playoff rankings and will most likely move up one spot to No. 11 in Tuesday\u2019s updated rankings.<\/p>\n

There has been much debate regarding whether the Cougars\u2019 r\u00e9sum\u00e9 would merit an at-large Playoff bid should they win out, reach the Big 12 title game and lose there to Texas Tech again. <\/p>\n

Notre Dame (8-2) and a pair of two-loss SEC teams in Alabama and Oklahoma currently rank ahead of the one-loss Cougars, creating a bit of a stir within BYU and Big 12 circles.<\/p>\n

Of course, winning in Arlington would solve everything for Sitake\u2019s squad by resulting in an automatic bid.<\/p>\n

In 2024, SMU finished 11-2 with a conference championship game loss and got the final playoff spot, and this year\u2019s BYU team has a better strength of record than those Mustangs did.<\/p>\n

But amid all the arguments for and against BYU, Portnoy remains firm in his belief for BYU and in the Big 12 sending two teams to the CFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey deserve two (teams). Texas Tech and BYU are Playoff teams,\u201d Portnoy said. \u201c… Every week people are picking against BYU … Put some respect on BYU\u2019s name! Put some respect on Cosmo, he\u2019s a great performer. This team deserves to be in the Playoff, end of story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Dave Portnoy and Cosmo the Cougar are pictured together during Fox\u2019s \u201cBig Noon Kickoff\u201d show at Brigham Young University in Provo on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy came to Provo for Fox \u201cBig Noon Kickoff\u201d and got his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-299166","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-ncaafootball","12":"tag-news-feed-local","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}