BYU’s path to the Big 12 title game is all on paper now.

Last year, the Cougars finished No. 13 in the country, just outside the College Football Playoff, and destroyed Colorado in the Alamo Bowl. But the 2025 schedule, released this week, will bring its own challenges for BYU.

Maybe not as hard metrically, this schedule has more travel than 2024. It also has some inopportune bye weeks.

Here are five takeaways from BYU’s 2025 slate.

Seeing Utah early

Brett Yormark told The Salt Lake Tribune he could potentially move the BYU-Utah game back to its traditional spot during rivalry week.

BYU went to Salt Lake on Nov. 9 last year, the earliest meeting between the two schools while sharing a conference since 1977. But this year, the Big 12 commissioner scheduled the game even earlier.

BYU will host Utah on Oct. 18. It will be the seventh game of the season.

Now, there’s arguments for why it’s the right move. During rivalry week, BYU-Utah would be competing with games like Texas-Texas A&M and Alabama-Auburn for eyes. On Oct. 18, the rivalry can stand alone. That was the reasoning Yormark gave last year — generally moving away from rivalry week altogether.

But it is still a letdown for fans not to have the game back to its historical spot with all the build-up.

There is an added element to this game. Last year, BYU and Utah both had bye weeks before it. This time, BYU will be coming off a road trip to Arizona. Utah will have just played Arizona State.

It will be a difficult turnaround for both teams. And it feels like the conference devalued the game.

Bye week issues

Remember when BYU had an independent schedule and wished for bye weeks spread out evenly?

Well, it didn’t work out this year.

The Cougars have a bye week in the third week of the season, setting up for a conference schedule where it plays 10 games in 11 weeks.

Having a bye week that early, after Portland State and Stanford, is far from ideal. BYU should be mostly healthy at that point. It really needs a bye week later in the season for it to have its highest value.

A tough turnaround

One of the oddities of this schedule is BYU traveling to Greenville, North Carolina — 2,230 miles away — to face East Carolina. It’s the return game for when ECU visited BYU in 2022.

The problem for the Cougars is they follow the cross-country trip with a road game against Colorado.

It’s the Big 12 opener that should get plenty of national attention.

BYU will come into that game somewhat tired. ECU isn’t a difficult opponent necessarily, but it is a long trip. The Cougars will leave on a Thursday because it is two time zones away and then travel back. The turnaround is one of the hardest on the schedule.

Far off destinations

Greenville isn’t the only weird trip on this schedule. BYU will also go to Ames, Iowa, and Lubbock, Texas. It might be chilly in west Texas (even in the 30s) for that Nov. 8 trip at night.

BYU will travel to six different states this year. It hits Cincinnati late in the year, too, another cold place to play nearly 1,700 miles away.

Missed chances

We’ve written it before, but this schedule feels like a missed chance for the Big 12.

BYU isn’t playing Baylor again, a program that seemed like the Cougars’ natural rival as the league’s two religious institutions. The schools had a previous history, too, playing each other in 2021 and 2022.

BYU also doesn’t play Arizona State, a matchup that got chippy last year in Tempe (remember the premature field storming). Yormark said he wants to develop rivalries in his new league. Right now, it’s tough to see where that comes from if the Big 12 lets potential rivalries go dormant every year.