Facing expectations: BYU football takes on teams picked at top and bottom in middle of Big 12 schedule

Preseason impressions can be spot on — or they can be wildly inaccurate.
The three teams the BYU football team is facing in the middle of its Big 12 schedule find themselves on the opposite ends of the spectrum with regards to the hoped-for accuracy of the 2023 predictions.
Texas (picked first in the league preseason media poll) and Texas Tech (slotted fourth) want to show the voters were right to anoint them as contenders, while West Virginia (which came in last) wants to prove that they were dead wrong.
Here’s the second in a three-part series looking at what this year’s BYU conference foes talked about last week during Big 12 media days at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The heart of 2023 conference action for the Cougars features a home game against Texas Tech, a road game at Texas and a road game at West Virginia:
The Red Raiders had a similar season to BYU in 2022 with a solid start, four losses in five games in the middle of the year and then four straight victories to close things out. Texas Tech is hoping that it learned some valuable lessons from those ups and downs, which can propel it to the top of the league.
“We’ve got 18 starters coming back from the bowl game, and so we have a lot of experience,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said. “I do think it’s a wide-open conference.
“I think for us, we have to stay healthy. I know this is going to be coach-speak, but we really do have to handle the expectation that maybe a lot of guys on our roster have not had before. We’ve got to stay humble. But we’ve got a really good opportunity to be a really good football team.”
One of the areas where the Red Raiders look to be very good is at quarterback, since they have a pair of veterans coming back.
“I think we’re the only team in the conference that has two quarterbacks who have won Big 12 games,” McGuire said. “I feel like we have as good, if not the best quarterback room not only in the Big 12, but in the country. I’m excited about both of those guys (Tyler Shough and Behren Morton). Tyler is such a leader for this team, and he’s going to have a great year for us.”
The oft-repeated opinion that “the Longhorns are back” has been repeated so many times in recent years that it has almost become an on-going joke when Texas hasn’t been able to live up to the expectations.
This year, however, Longhorn head coach Steve Sarkisian and his squad are looking to change that narrative.
“I chose to be the head coach of the University of Texas, and our players chose to come to the University of Texas,” Sarkisian said. “There is responsibility and expectations that come with that.
“We don’t shy away from that. We accept it. We have to acknowledge it. Then we push it to the side, and then we get back to the daily grind of what we need to do.”
There is also an added element in that this will be the final year that the Longhorns are in the Big 12 before they join the SEC in 2024. Sarkisian doesn’t expect that to make a difference for his team, but acknowledged that others might feel differently.
“We’ve got a roster full of players who quite frankly came to the University of Texas to try to win a Big 12 Championship, and we’ve got one more opportunity to do that,” Sarkisian said. “I think our guys are focused on that.”
Mountaineer head coach Neal Brown didn’t mince words when he talked about his experience when he heard the news about coming in last in the 2023 preseason poll.
“I’m upset about the media poll,” Brown said. “I definitely do not agree with that.”
He recounted how he was on the beach and got a text message about the poll that he “made the mistake of looking at.”
“From that point on, my vacation was over,” Brown said. “I went into football mode. This is why I disagree. First of all, it starts with belief in our staff and belief in our players. How we finished is the next thing. We beat Oklahoma and beat Oklahoma State on the road, winning two of our last three games.”
He noted that his team has significant returning experience and he feels like it has gotten even better during the offseason.
“We have a clear vision of what we have to improve on,” Brown said. “I think if you talk about offensively, we’ve got to get better efficiency-wise, especially on first down and in the red zone. We’ve got to be more explosive and eliminate errors. Defensively is what we’ve got to do better is we’ve got to limit the explosive plays.”
His final statement on the preseason poll was a prediction.
“I’m looking forward to proving everybody wrong on that front,” Brown said. “We won’t finish there (in last place).”