Kirk Herbrstreit Has BYU Football Knocking On Door Of Top Four Teams

PROVO, Utah – ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit has been a believer in what he has seen from BYU football in 2020 since he called the Cougars game against Navy on Labor Day night.

The love from the College GameDay host continues as BYU has jumped out to a 3-0 start with the Cougars dominating their opposition.

Every Sunday after another weekend of college football concludes Herbstreit puts out on social media his top four teams in the country right now. Along with the top four, he throws in what he calls “Next 2.”

This week, BYU found themselves in Herbie’s “Next 2,” knocking on the door of the top four teams in the country among those who have played so far this season.

My top 4 THIS WEEK. Again only ranking teams THAT HAVE PLAYED!!!
1-@AlabamaFTBL
2-@ClemsonFB
3-@GatorsFB
4-@GeorgiaFootball
Next 2@CanesFootball @BYUfootball

— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) October 4, 2020

Keep in mind, Herbie’s list doesn’t include teams from the Big Ten, Pac-12, or Group of 5 leagues who have yet to kick off their fall seasons. But to place BYU in the top six and over every team from the Big 12 Conference is high praise for Kalani Sitake’s squad.

The dominance will have to continue if they want the national accolades and attention to continue. Next up for BYU is a Saturday tilt at home against 3-1 UTSA who was down to their third-string quarterback in the Roadrunners loss at UAB.

Kirk Herbstreit has been impressed with BYU in 2020

“This is a good football team,” Kirk Herbstreit said to Scott Van Pelt about BYU during ESPN’s SportsCenter on September 7th. “I know we’re looking at the score [55-3 at Navy] –I don’t know how much of the game you saw– but they are a good team. They don’t play anybody all year. But they could be sitting there undefeated at the end of the year wondering, they should throw their hat in the ring in the [College Football] Playoff if we have one.”

Now that every FBS conference will return at some point this fall, we will likely have a College Football Playoff. But could BYU maintain this position when the Big Ten and Pac-12 return? We shall see.

The teams in front of BYU are some of college football’s best brands, with Alabama and Clemson leading the way as the two powers of the sport in recent years. In front of BYU, Miami, who is one spot in Herbstreit’s top team’s list, travels to Death Valley to take on Clemson this Saturday.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m., KSL Newsradio). Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.