“I’AM LEAVING” Quarterback Gerry Bohanon has announced that he is leaving the BYU Cougars due to…..

In the summer, people were always like, ‘national championship year, national championship team, man, this is a national champion caliber program,’” Poppinga told the Deseret News at Monday’s golf gathering and media availability in northern Utah County.

“I would be like, ‘You guys are clueless.’ Nobody knows anything before the season starts.”

Poppinga isn’t the first coach or former player to suggest the BYU fanbase is a bit delusional. But then, that’s why they are called fans.

They tend to be fanatical. Expectations are always over the moon. Every fanbase has them.

But for BYU football this year, at least among media members and other preseason prognosticators, expectations are as low as they’ve been in quite some time.

Almost everybody is picking the 2024 Cougars to finish in the lower third of the new 16-team Big 12 and miss out on a bowl game for the second-straight year.

Voting has concluded for the 2024 Big 12 media preseason poll, and the Cougars quite likely will be picked to finish 14th or 15th, if a straw poll of a couple reporters who participated in the poll is any indication.

Last year the poll was released on July 6 — a week before the Big 12 football media days in Arlington, Texas.

This year’s Big 12 gathering is July 9-10 in Las Vegas.

For his part, Poppinga doesn’t care how the voting unfolds.

He said he would “love it that way” if BYU is picked to finish last or second-to-last.

“I like that nobody has any expectations for us, because honestly, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter,” Poppinga said.

“We have high expectations for ourselves. We have always taught the players, no matter what, if it is negative or positive noise from the outside, you don’t listen to that stuff.