There are only two teams in the Big 12 this season that will play multiple road games in its nonconference schedule.
TCU, which visited Stanford to start the season and will travel to SMU for its annually scheduled rivalry game, is one.
The other is BYU, which signed up to play at SMU and Wyoming in successive weeks.
While both schedules are far from ideal in the Power Four, TCU’s is probably more understandable. Both road games are against Power Four opponents. And the Horned Frogs’ series with SMU alternates home sites — just a short drive from each other — every year.
But in BYU’s case, the Cougars are electing to visit a Group of Five program and go to a Power Four team over 1,000 miles away. One of those tasks is hard enough. Doing both back-to-back is nearly unheard of for a Big 12 program.
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe acknowledged that the schedule he handed head coach Kalani Sitake was atypical — and possibly the most difficult circumstance in the league. But he called it a “best-case scenario” given the options he had.
Holmoe also said the most obvious solution — buying out Wyoming’s contract and trying to schedule another home game — was off the table out of principle.
“It wasn’t what I would have preferred to do,” Holmoe said of playing two road games. “... We could have possibly bought that [Wyoming] game. But that wouldn’t have been who we are and what we do. When we were an independent, we honored all the games we played. We didn’t even buy out a game.”
Still, even Wyoming is surprised BYU is coming to Laramie as a Big 12 program. Technically, this matchup is the return game of a home-and-home series between the two schools that was agreed upon in 2018. Wyoming visited Provo in 2022. But Cowboys head coach Jay Sawvel said he fully expected BYU to pay the buyout and back out of the game.
“Coach [Craig] Bohl told me in the locker room there in Provo in 2022 that he didn’t think that [BYU] would come back, that the return game would happen,” Sawvel said. “So obviously it is happening. And I don’t know whether [a buyout] was discussed or not. But it will be a night where I don’t have to worry about the fan base showing up.”
In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Holmoe explained how the schedule got to this point in the first place — why two nonconference road games were ever on the books in one year — and the different ways he tried to get out of it.
Holmoe transitioned BYU’s schedule from independence to the Big 12 over the last few years. Essentially, BYU went from having 12 nonconference games every season to just three. It meant he had to start moving previously scheduled games around and trying to get out of certain contracts.
“Some of [those games] we were able to just go deal, we’re out, shake hands and we’re done,” Holmoe said. “Some of them, contractually, we felt we had to put into the schedule. They went from being independent games to nonconference games. But there were some [nonconference] holes early [as they moved games around].”
In the process of pushing some games back, a 2024 nonconference slot opened up.
BYU already had Southern Illinois, its FCS opponent, and Wyoming, its group of five matchup, on the books. The Big 12 requires its members to play at least one Power Four opponent in the nonconference every year.
Sometimes the conference will give out waivers in special circumstances when teams struggle to find a Power Four game. But Holmoe said that BYU did not get a waiver to avoid scheduling a P4 team in that slot — even if it was still transitioning to the league.
So Holmoe went to Dave Brown, one of the premier college football scheduling experts, and said he needed to find a team. On short notice, Brown only had three or four teams available for BYU to schedule.
Holmoe presented the list to head coach Kalani Sitake to choose from. The coordinators reviewed tape to see who they liked the most, he said. Sitake landed on SMU — who is just entering the ACC. BYU would visit Dallas first and then the Mustangs would come to Provo in 2027.
“You don’t really have a selection of teams to pick who to play,” Holmoe said.
Holmoe did have other options to get out of the back-to-back road games. One was to keep the SMU game on the road, buy out Wyoming, and then try to fill another home game in their spot. But Holmoe said he didn’t find any suitable opponents that could have replaced Wyoming in Week 3.
“We could have possibly played a home and road game. But the home game might have been against a P5 team, or a great Group of Five team that you don’t know. You don’t really want that game,” Holmoe said.
He could have also tried to move Wyoming’s road game to a different season, rather than pay a buyout. But, Holmoe said he was already pushing back several nonconference games and didn’t have more space.
“You can’t put them in 2045,” he said. “I think it was the best-case scenario in all cases, under the circumstances. ... If I had my choice we would play eight home games.”
Eight home games, though, will be nearly impossible even in the future. Even getting to seven home games, which many SEC teams play, will be hard at BYU.
The program is pushing so many of its previously scheduled games back that its conference schedule is booked for over a decade. The Cougars currently have a road game against Troy that was pushed to 2035.
“I’m just going to tell you right now, going out, you’re not going to see us [at seven],” Holmoe said.
But in the immediate future, Sitake will have to deal with a difficult nonconference schedule first beginning with Friday’s game in Dallas.
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