Say this much for the year 2025 in BYU sports: It did not lack in the newsiness department.
In fact, a case could be made that it was the most compelling, memorable, awe-inspiring, headline-grabbing, exasperating (to some) and epic sports year, as a whole, since the school began competing in intercollegiate athletics in earnest (read: football) a little more than 100 years ago.
As such, compiling a list of the top 10 biggest BYU sports stories of the year — usually a fun little exercise in the sports-deficient days leading up to Christmas — is considerably more difficult this time around as opposed to the last four or five.
But we will give it a try — with the caveat that these are just opinions of the author and others who frequently contribute to our BYU sports coverage: Dick Harmon, Jackson Payne and Dave McCann.
In general, it was a year of change — BYU got a new athletic director, as Brian Santiago replaced Tom Holmoe — and triumph, particularly in football, men’s basketball and track/cross country.
There was some controversy and not-so-pleasant news to report, as usual. At least one coach was forced out, maybe two, and traveling BYU fans were subjected to more derogatory religious chants (continuing a troubling trend). Some high-profile BYU athletes got into legal trouble or ran afoul of the honor code, bringing about suspensions and withdrawals.
Of course, BYU’s rise in the world of NIL, revenue sharing, conference realignment and increased ticket prices in the school’s third year in the Big 12 drew scrutiny, and criticism from within and without, in some cases.
The overriding theme in BYU sports in 2025, from this viewpoint, was the school’s ability to attract and then successfully utilize some of the top freshman athletes in the country — basketball’s AJ Dybantsa, football’s Bear Bachmeier, golf’s Kihei Akina and the long-distance runner who may very well become the greatest BYU athlete ever if she continues her amazing trajectory, the incomparable Jane Hedengren.
Their stories are just being written, which will undoubtedly give us plenty of fodder in 2026.
Without further ado, however, here’s the Deseret News’ look at the 10 most compelling stories of the year 2025 for BYU sports:
1. BYU football gains even more traction in its third season in the Big 12, rises to as high as No. 7 in the rankings and reaches its first-ever Power Four conference championship game.
After the Cougars went 11-2 in 2024 and won the Alamo Bowl convincingly over Colorado, expectations were fairly high in 2025 — until the program lost its starting quarterback to Tulane. As a result, BYU was not ranked and among the teams receiving votes in the AP Top 25 preseason poll.
The Cougars got off to a great start — blowing out Portland State, Stanford and East Carolina (on the road) before their Big 12 opener at Colorado. The Cougars overcame an early 14-0 deficit, a sign of things to come, to win 24-21 and were off to the races.
Come-from-behind wins over Arizona, Utah and Iowa State got them into the top 10, and set up a huge showdown between No. 7 BYU and No. 8 Texas Tech in Lubbock. The Red Raiders prevailed 29-7, handing BYU a loss that dropped the Cougars to No. 12 in the College Football Playoff rankings.
BYU climbed back to No. 11 with wins over TCU, Cincinnati and UCF, but the damage was done. Critics pointed to the blowout loss at Texas Tech as the reason why BYU wasn’t given more consideration for an at-large berth in the CFP. Facing a do-or-die situation in the Big 12 championship game, the Cougars committed four turnovers and lost 34-7 after garnering an early 7-0 lead before Bachmeier sprained his left ankle late in the first quarter.
2. On the heels of signing No. 1 prep recruit Dybantsa in December 2024, the Richie Saunders-led BYU’s men’s basketball team reaches the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 in coach Kevin Young’s first season in Provo.
It didn’t take long for Young to deliver on some rather bold promises he made when he succeeded Mark Pope in April 2024. He lured some top recruits to Provo, took advantage of the leadership and toughness of Saunders, and breezed through a rather easy nonconference schedule. Then the Cougars did better than expected in the ultra-tough Big 12.
Wins at Arizona and Iowa State and a historic blowout of Kansas at the Marriott Center stamped the Cougars as legitimate contenders for the conference title. The Cougars downed Iowa State again at the Big 12 tournament before falling to No. 2 Houston 74-54 in a difficult semifinal.
In the Big Dance, BYU knocked off VCU and No. 13 Wisconsin to get to its first Sweet 16 since 2011, but lost 113-88 to red-hot Alabama in Newark, New Jersey.
3. Young adds Baylor’s Rob Wright to form a “Big Three” with Dybantsa and Saunders and the BYU basketball team opens the 2025-26 season with a 12-1 record and a top-10 national ranking against a tough nonconference schedule, highlighted by Wright’s buzzer-beater in a win over Clemson at Madison Square Garden.
The Cougars picked up where they left off last March, as Young masterfully mixed in the talents of Dybantsa, Wright and Kennard Davis with returning stars Saunders and Keba Keita to successfully navigate perhaps the most difficult nonconference schedule in program history.
Wins over Villanova, No. 23 Wisconsin, Miami, Dayton and Clemson highlighted November and December, and fans were left wondering what might have been after the Cougars lost 86-84 to No. 3 UConn in Boston while playing without Davis, who was suspended.
BYU’s chances of advancing to the Final Four for the first time ever were hurt last month when valuable backups Dawson Baker and Nate Pickens were lost to season-ending injuries. BYU opens Big 12 play on Jan. 3 with another huge test — at Kansas State.
4. Projected starting quarterback Jake Retzlaff is accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit in May, a lawsuit that is eventually dismissed, but triggers a series of events that causes the QB to leave BYU and enroll at Tulane.
After spring camp ended in March, Retzlaff laid out his goals for the 2025 season for reporters, goals which included the senior quarterback getting an invitation to the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York City in December. Less than two months later, the bombshell news rocked the BYU community, and spawned nationwide headlines.
On June 27, Retzlaff filed a response to the accusations, claiming he had “consensual sex” with the woman who filed the lawsuit. He denied the sexual assault allegations. Two days later, sources confirmed to the Deseret News that Retzlaff was leaving the program in the face of a seven-game suspension for violating the honor code.
The lawsuit was dismissed by 3rd District Judge Coral Sanchez on June 30, and on July 21 Retzlaff announced he was transferring to Tulane. In an ironic twist, Retzlaff’s team qualified for the CFP, while BYU was the second team out and relegated to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl on Dec. 27.
5. True freshman Bear Bachmeier wins a three-way QB battle in August, becomes the first freshman to start in a season opener at QB for BYU, then leads the team to one of its best seasons in school history.
First told by the Deseret News in August, Bachmeier’s journey from young athletic prodigy to entering the transfer portal after spring ball at Stanford to BYU along with his brother, Tiger, became a national story as the wins piled up for the 19-year-old from Murrieta Valley, California.
His name, his jersey number (No. 47) and his incredible, tackle-busting 22-yard touchdown run to beat rival Utah 24-21 became the stuff of legends, dampened only by a tough 29-7 loss to Texas Tech, in which the phenom committed two turnovers and looked human for the first time in more than two months.
Bachmeier recovered to lead BYU to three straight wins and into the Big 12 championship game, where he was hampered by a first-quarter ankle injury that limited his mobility the remainder of the 34-7 loss in Arlington, Texas.
6. Tom Holmoe retires as BYU’s highly successful athletic director after 20 years in February and is replaced by deputy AD Brian Santiago in May, and the new AD wastes little time in making his mark on the department.
In almost any other year, this would be at or near the top of BYU sports stories. Holmoe made the announcement in February, saying he had made the decision the previous July, and sat on it for seven months so as to not distract from the 2024 football season, which was also a huge success.
Holmoe’s contributions were numerous, but perhaps his most notable accomplishment was guiding BYU through football independence and membership in the West Coast Conference for most other sports and into the Big 12.
BYU’s deputy athletic director since 2017, Santiago was named Holmoe’s successor on May 13 after what BYU president C. Shane Reese said was a nationwide search.
7. After leading his football team to an 11-1 record and a tie for first place in the Big 12 regular season, coach Kalani Sitake listens to a lucrative job offer from blue-blood Penn State before signing a longterm contract extension with BYU.
Three tension-filled days of hand-wringing and nervousness ended for most BYU football fans on Dec. 2 when Sitake received his fifth contract extension since becoming the head coach in 2015. It was the second contract extension for the coach in less than a year, after he inked a deal on Dec. 7, 2024, upon leading the Cougars to a 10-2 record in their second season in the Big 12.
Penn State, which would later hire Matt Campbell away from Iowa State, had reportedly offered Sitake more than $10 million a year to replace James Franklin in the other “Happy Valley.”
Suffice it to say, most BYU fans were ecstatic that the school was able to retain the popular coach.
“The outpouring of love, that’s BYU,” Sitake said.
8. Provo native Jane Hedengren, a middle- and long-distance runner, obliterates several course records and finishes second, along with coach Diljeet Taylor’s team, at the NCAA National Women’s Cross Country Championships.
Hedengren’s career at BYU is just getting started, but already the Timpview High product has put herself in the record books with an array of accomplishments her first three months in Provo. Before placing second at nationals, she won three of her first four collegiate races, the Pre-National Invitational, the Big 12 Championships, and the NCAA Mountain Regionals.
She set course records at the Pre-Nationals and in the conference championships.
“I am looking forward to years ahead of me to keep building and to keep working and learning and failing and just getting back up again,” Hedengren told the Deseret News after nationals.
In her first NCAA indoor race, Hedengren shattered the 5,000 meters record with a time of 14:44.79 at the 2025 Shareon Colyear-Danville Season Opener in Boston.
9. Russian teenager Egor Demin makes rapid improvement as the season progresses after a slow start, and is selected by the Brooklyn Nets with the eighth overall pick in June’s NBA draft.
Kevin Young’s first major recruit, Demin did not take the college basketball world by storm early in his freshman season. But by the time the season was over, the 6-foot-9 point guard from Moscow who came to BYU from European power Real Madrid turned out to be as good as advertised.
Demin was a major reason why BYU made a late-season run, getting to the Sweet 16 in March Madness before falling to Alabama.
Along the way, the quick-witted Demin won the hearts of BYU fans everywhere with his sincere expressions of appreciation for the local culture and state’s predominant faith, saying the school owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made him a better person.
“I was coming here with faith, and I am leaving here with a bigger faith, and a stronger faith, in God and (that) good can happen if you believe in that, and if you pray, and dedicate it to the Lord and if you trust him,” Demin said while announcing in a news conference that he was declaring for the NBA draft.
Through 24 games, Demin was making the Nets’ pick look like a solid one, averaging 8.7 points, 3.4 assists and 3.1 rebounds per game.
10. Five-star California high school quarterback Ryder Lyons commits to BYU on ESPN and signs in December as part of the top signing class in BYU football history.
When BYU was invited to join the Big 12 in September 2021 — the biggest BYU sports story of that year, obviously — coach Kalani Sitake and company said the admission into the Power Five (now Power Four) conference would greatly improve the Cougars’ recruiting in football.
Those words proved prophetic in 2025, as BYU landed the No. 21 signing class in college football, according to the 247sports.com team rankings. Experts said it is the best recruiting class in program history.
The gem of the signing class is Folsom, California, quarterback Ryder Lyons, who was a five-star prospect when he committed to BYU on June 24 on ESPN — somewhat similar to what Dybantsa did in 2024 — over offers from the likes of Oregon, USC and others.
Lyons was dropped to a four-star rating in the 247 Sports composite ratings by the time he signed on Dec. 3, for whatever reason, but was still the school’s highest-rated QB prospect since five-star Ben Olson signed in the early 2000s. Lyons is expected to go on a church mission to Florida before enrolling.
“I am looking at the potential here with this signing class, and the sky is the limit for this class,” Sitake said. “We can do some really great things with it.”
Here are some other notable happenings in 2025:
- BYU fans are subjected to derogatory religious chants at Arizona, Colorado and Cincinnati; the chants at Colorado drew a $50,000 fine and public reprimand for the Buffaloes from the Big 12.
- After a so-so regular season, BYU’s women’s soccer team makes an improbable run to win the Big 12 tournament and two College Cup matches behind the heroics of third-string goalkeeper Chelsea Peterson.
- Women’s volleyball coach Heather Olmstead announces she is “transitioning” out of her role as head coach and will “pursue new professional avenues” after the Cougars are ousted in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year.
- Women’s basketball coach Amber Whiting parts ways with BYU after three seasons, and is replaced by former BYU basketball great Lee Cummard.
- BYU men’s golf wins the Reno NCAA Regional, then finishes in a tie for 13th place at nationals before adding top recruit Kihei Akina to the 2025-26 lineup.
- James Corrigan wins the 2025 NCAA steeplechase national championship, while BYU women’s distance medley relay team wins its second-straight national title.
- New BYU basketball player Kennard Davis is suspended for two games, including an 86-84 loss to UConn in Boston, after being charged with DUI and marijuana possession in Provo in November; Davis pled not guilty and will get his day in court in January.
- Led by Los Angeles Rams receiver Puka Nacua, former BYU football players continued to make their mark in the NFL during the 2025 season.
