expectations coming into this season. It's hard for voters (or the committee, evidently) to completely change in a month or two the impression they had had of BYU for 9+ months. Had we been able to hold on and beat Oklahoma and Oklahoma State late last year, or even just OSU, and made it to a bowl game (and maybe won that one too), the whole narrative coming into this season probably would have been very different. But no one remembers how tight those games were, except some BYU fans. Instead, we finished with a 5-game losing streak and no bowl. It's taking time to overcome the impression and expectation this left coming out of last year.
It's also very unfortunate that K-State lost to Houston on Saturday. Had K-State had only one loss and been more highly ranked, I think it would have boosted BYU at least 1 spot in the initial CFP rankings, maybe 2. That was a bad loss for us, and for the Big 12.