In 2025, as BYU celebrated its 150th anniversary, BYU athletics experienced something that felt fitting for the moment: a freshmen wave unlike anything the school has ever seen.
Across four different sports, a group of freshmen almost immediately became national-level stars.
AJ Dybantsa became the face of college basketball before he could legally rent a car.
Track star Jane Hedengren shattered records at a pace that almost stopped sounding real.
Kihei Akina arrived as the best golf recruit BYU has ever signed and immediately played like it.
Quarterback Bear Bachmeier walked into one of the most scrutinized positions in sports and calmly led BYU football to 12 wins.
"I don't know if you could ever go back in BYU history and find four more phenomenal freshmen than those that you just named," said Jon McBride, BYU associate athletic director for communications and media strategy.
Individually, each of these freshman seasons would already stand out historically at any college, let alone BYU. Collectively, they raise a legitimate question: is this the greatest freshman class BYU athletics has ever had?
It might prove difficult to argue otherwise.
For years, BYU basketball fans dreamed about the possibility of landing a truly elite, program-changing recruit. SLAM magazine went ahead and called its shot, claiming Dybantsa to be “future proof” in their December 2025 issue. Then, Dybantsa arrived and somehow exceeded even the impossible expectations attached to him.
The Boston native came to BYU carrying a level of hype only seen once every few years in college basketball. He played his senior year at Utah Prep in Hurricane, Utah, but his recruitment was nationwide from the beginning.
North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, UConn, the list goes on. Every blue blood wanted him, and why wouldn’t they? He was the No. 1 recruit in the country before reclassifying, then remained at the No. 1 spot even after moving up a year.
By the time he stepped onto campus, he was already a three-time FIBA gold medalist and widely viewed as the future No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft. Yet even with all that anticipation, his freshman season somehow felt bigger than advertised.
Dybantsa led the nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game while adding 6.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists on 51% shooting. He became a Consensus First Team All-American, won the Julius Erving Award as the nation’s top small forward, earned Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors, and made First Team All-Big 12.
Along the way, he also broke 19 BYU freshman records.
His 894 points were the third-most ever scored by a freshman in NCAA history.
At basketball programs like BYU, freshmen are usually expected to develop. Dybantsa arrived already producing like a superstar senior. His season didn’t just elevate the basketball program, but helped change the national perception of what BYU can be.
Beyond the statistics, Dybantsa’s recruitment may have broader implications for BYU basketball. Unlike many past BYU stars, he is not originally from Utah and is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Historically, BYU has often relied heavily on Latter-day Saint recruiting connections or regional familiarity.
Dybantsa choosing BYU over traditional blue blood programs suggests the program’s national recruiting profile has changed significantly, viewing Provo not merely as a niche destination, but as a legitimate launching point for professional success, particularly under the tutelage of coach Kevin Young’s relevant NBA experience and relationships.
McBride believes Dybantsa's decision reflects a broader shift in how elite recruits view BYU.
"We're not recruiting fundamentally different athletes than we were before," McBride said. "The difference is that BYU has become much more attractive to those athletes. They see what BYU is accomplishing. They see that we're competing with the best of the best. And they want to be here."
Some athletes have great freshman seasons, but Hedengren appears to be building an entirely new standard.
The former Timpview star entered BYU already carrying legendary status in high school distance running circles. She was the 2025 Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year, an award given not just for track and field, but across all girls high school sports in America. Previous winners include names like Candace Parker, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, and even LeBron James on the boys’ side.
She broke nine national high school records before even stepping foot on campus.
Once she had arrived, the transition to collegiate competition was more than seamless.
In her first race as a Cougar, Hedengren set a course record at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course, beating the previous mark by 25 seconds. Since then, records have fallen almost monthly. BYU records, Big 12 records, NCAA records, sometimes even her own records.
Already, she owns NCAA records in the indoor and outdoor 5000 meters and the outdoor 10,000 meters. She has already won two NCAA individual championships. Her indoor 5000-meter time was not only a national high school record, but became the second-fastest indoor 5000 ever run by an American woman.
Hedengren's accomplishments have drawn admiration from across the athletic department, including from fellow freshman phenom Kihei Akina.
"Some of my teammates have called her one of the greatest athletes ever," Akina said. "Just seeing her and the others represent BYU and be such great role models for BYU has been really cool."
Unlike Dybantsa, Hedengren’s path to BYU makes much more intuitive sense. She grew up in Provo. She attended Timpview. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her father, John, both ran for BYU and is now a chemical engineering professor at BYU. BYU has long been one of the premier distance-running programs in America, particularly on the women’s side.
But perhaps that’s part of what makes this freshman class so fascinating. BYU is winning at both of their desired recruiting models simultaneously. It is retaining elite in-state LDS talent while also attracting transcendent national stars with no built-in institutional connection.
Golf is usually a sport of gradual progression. Freshmen learn college competition, sophomores become contributors, and then juniors contend nationally. College golf tends to be a humbling experience for those incoming freshmen.
Not for Kihei Akina. He ignored that timeline too, and after making a PGA Tour cut, Akina is already playing like a professional, literally.
The Alpine native arrived at BYU as the highest-rated golf recruit in program history after receiving offers from roughly 50 different schools. Before even teeing it up for the Cougars, he had already won the Larry H. Miller Utah Open, becoming the youngest winner since 1934 and the first amateur to ever win the event.
That alone would have made him one of the most intriguing freshmen in BYU athletics.
Instead, he immediately became one of the best collegiate golfers in the country.
This came at no surprise to Akina, who said, “I thought coming into college that my game was up there with some of the best college players. To me, it was kind of just about proving that to myself throughout the season.”
Through 12 collegiate events, Akina posted two wins, seven top-five finishes, and 10 top-10 finishes while averaging a remarkable score of 68. He tied the lowest single-round score in Big 12 Championship history with a 63 and later made the cut at a PGA Tour event, finishing tied for 16th at the Puerto Rico Open.
He now sits inside the top 25 of the World Amateur Golf Rankings and among the top collegiate golfers in America. More importantly for BYU, he helped push the Cougars back into NCAA Championship contention, where it finished fourth at the Athens Regional.
Like Hedengren, Akina represents the traditional BYU success story in some ways. He is local, and starred at Lone Peak High School. He grew up familiar with the university and its culture. His father, like Hedengren’s, is a BYU athlete alumnus, who played basketball at BYU-Hawaii.
But, his recruitment still matters nationally. Akina had opportunities to play basically anywhere in the country, but BYU was initially not the obvious choice for him.
When asked whether BYU had always been the plan, Akina said, “It actually wasn’t. I wanted to see my options. I went on a bunch of visits to different schools. I wanted to see the top programs in the country."
Ultimately, it was the people within and surrounding the golf program that convinced him otherwise.
"The coaches really stood out to me," Akina said. "I thought it would be a great place for me to grow — not only as a player, but spiritually as well."
Akina choosing BYU reinforces the growing reality that BYU’s move into the Big 12 elevated the school’s athletic visibility across every sport, and not just football and basketball.
Quarterback is a notoriously difficult position.
Every throw is dissected. Every mistake is amplified. At BYU, where the position carries decades of history, that pressure becomes even heavier.
Then, Bear Bachmeier showed up and started a season opener as a true freshman, making him the first player in program history to do so.
The California native originally committed to Stanford before transferring to BYU during spring practice. Even then, nothing was handed to him. He still had to win the job against backups McCae Hillstead and Treyson Bourguet, who both had already been in Provo the season prior.
Even before Bachmeier took his first collegiate snap, BYU's athletic communications staff understood the situation was unusual.
"We don't often have a freshman that we know is going to start right away," BYU football SID Kenny Cox said. "This was different. We knew he was our guy."
Because of that, Cox said the department was deliberate about limiting media obligations early in the season to allow Bachmeier to focus on football.
And once he did, BYU football was somehow able to continue its success after Jake Retzaff’s untimely departure.
Bachmeier led the Cougars to a 12-2 season while serving as a team co-captain. He earned Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year honors, won Big 12 Freshman of the Week seven times, and helped engineer six comeback victories.
As Bachmeier's profile grew, so did the attention surrounding him.
"Everything we did with him was much more intentional," Cox said. "We really wanted to make sure we utilized him where we could, but also didn't overwhelm him."
Cox believes part of Bachmeier's appeal and future legacy goes beyond just purely wins and statistics, but specific stories in time.
“[Fans] will remember iconic moments. Him jumping over people and dragging defenders into the end zone against Utah — that will be remembered forever. But I think they'll also remember his personality, the way he plays. He's a character. People love a story like that.”
Like Dybantsa, Bachmeier is neither a Utah native nor a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Historically, players fitting that profile may have often viewed BYU as a difficult recruiting sell. A different culture, in a different environment, with different expectations.
But BYU’s recent trajectory appears to be changing some of those assumptions.
For athletes like Dybantsa and Bachmeier, the appeal was probably clear: national exposure, Big 12 competition, passionate fan support, player development, NIL infrastructure, and the opportunity to become foundational stars rather than just another name inside a crowded roster or legacy elsewhere.
Great freshman classes usually create campus-wide and sometimes even national excitement.
This one may create tangible momentum.
McBride does not believe the emergence of Dybantsa, Hedengren, Akina and Bachmeier was simply a series of fortunate events.
"I don't think it was a coincidence," McBride said. "I think it was super fortuitous that it all came together in the same season."
He pointed to a larger trend: BYU has become increasingly attractive to elite recruits because of its move to the Big 12, growing national profile, and commitment to legitimately competing at the highest levels of college athletics.
"We're stepping up to the plate and providing resources that allow us to compete with the best of the best," McBride said. "I think the future looks really, really bright."
What makes this freshman group unique is not merely the talent level, but the breadth of it. BYU isn’t succeeding in just one pipeline right now, but in basketball, football, track and field, cross country, and golf, among others.
That changes recruiting conversations, donor confidence, and national perception.
But perhaps most importantly, this changes belief internally.
For years, BYU often felt like a program trying to prove it belonged on the same stage as the nation’s elite athletic brands. Increasingly, that conversation is changing. Schools do not accidentally land the No. 1 basketball recruit in America, produce NCAA champions, compete in golf at a national level, and win 12 football games with a true freshman quarterback all in the same year.
That happens when an athletic department starts to evolve.
There is also something to be said about all of this occurring during BYU’s 150th anniversary year. The university spent a century and a half building its identity, traditions, and religious culture. Now, suddenly, a new generation of athletes appears to view those things not as archaic limitations, but as valuable assets.
And they are arriving from everywhere. Whether it be Boston, southern California, or just a few miles from campus.
Some, like Hedengren and Akina, probably grew up dreaming about BYU. Others, like Dybantsa and Bachmeier, voluntarily chose BYU despite having dozens of conceivable and attractive alternatives available to them.
Together, that may be the clearest sign yet of what BYU athletics is becoming.
Five or ten years from now, McBride hopes Cougar fans will view this freshman class as more than just a random collection of remarkable athletes.
"I hope they'll look back and see it as a turning point," he said.
Maybe they will.
Maybe they'll remember 2025-26 as the year AJ Dybantsa, Jane Hedengren, Kihei Akina and Bear Bachmeier arrived, and then some.
Or maybe they'll remember it as one of the turning points that helped shape the next era of BYU athletics.