Future Indy scheduling just took a huge hit

[Lawboy]

PAC-12 and Big X announced a scheduling arrangement, starting in 2017. For all sports. For football, means they will play 1 game each against each other. With the PAC-12 already having 9 conference games, this brings their set games to 10 per team. That leaves 2 to go.

I think the Utah series will be dead by 2017, if not sooner. Utah would have zero incentive to play us 2017 when they will need two cupcakes to guarantee wins. Also means many other PAC-12 teams will be less willing to play us, which will hurt future scheduling options.

I would watch for the SEC and ACC to work out something similar as it makes sense for them as well.

BYU needs to be in a major league by 2017--badly. Our scheduling options are shrinking, and with November scheduling already being an issue, it will get worse in 5 years. If we are still Indy in 2017, I suspect our schedules will not be as great as we would like--especially at LES.

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[SpiffCoug]

Did it really? How many B1G teams were we playing? How many PAC-12 teams are on upcoming schedules anyways?

[frdbtr]

Did it really? How many B1G teams were we playing? How many PAC-12 teams are on upcoming schedules anyways?

I think Lawboy makes a valid point. We want utah on our sched, that is a given. If conferences start making these contracts common it is going to make it much harder to get teams from these conferences to sched an independant to play especially late in the season.

[Cougs_Rule]

Losing to Utah hurts more than losing the utah series, IMO. So, We'll play Big 12, Conf USA, and Big East. We rarely played Big 10 teams anyway, so no loss there. We do like Pac schools to recruit, so a loss there. But we also align better in the future with Big 12 teams anyway, so might this help or be neutral more than hurt?

[EM_Puma]

When was the last time the evolution of college football (FCS) included anything positive toward BYU? Is it just preception or is our iceberg shrinking adrift on the national landscape?

[imuakahuku]

Not sure if this is a huge hit. Pac already did their "screw BYU rule" with the no late games except ND rule. What I want to see is if they schedule this game later in the season. It would be a great indication of the true intent of that rule. As for the B10 they seem to only like one competitive nonconf game a year so that could hurt if we were ever to schedule one them.

[Cougs_Rule]

Great Analogy. Misfit island for sure. Good thing ESantaPN knows we're out here.

What would "Touchdown-Jesus" and the Golden Domers do?

[Lawboy]

BYU aligns itself for scheduling and recruiting with the west. The west has a larger LDS base than the rest of the nation. We have always played western teams. We try to play at least 1 PAC team every year. The point is, this arrangement does not help us, because most PAC schools would then only have 2 games to schedule per year, and if they take the SEC route, they will play dogs only. Why play BYU and have a potential loss when you already have a PAC schedule of 9 games plus 1 Big X game each year? Answer: they probably won't. UW already dropped us. Utah is about to. And I do not see other PAC schools wanting to add BYU either.

If the SEC/ACC do the same thing, we are in trouble. We really need to get in the B12 badly. Or hope the BE stays afloat and still wants us later. That is unless we are all content with a slate of WAC, MAC and C-USA teams in the future as the staples of our schedule each year. I am not. I want 8 BCS caliber games per year. I did not say 8 top tier BCS teams, just 8 BCS teams. This includes Boise State, unless Peterson leaves.

[jvquarterback]

I'm not sure if this is a huge hit. Most of the PAC schools see us as a mid-tier school. I don't see that changing. It will still be possible to schedule two PAC schools a year. I'd rather schedule three but I don't think this won't make a big difference.

[mormonrasta]

It will be interesting to see what the fallout is. The Pac-12 isn't a typical BCS conference.

Over the last 5 years, the Pac-12 has played 44% of their regular season nonconference games against "major" teams (BCS conference and ND). The ACC played 43.8%.; Big East 38.8%; the MWC 38.4%; the SEC 29.6%; The Big 10 29.5%; The Big 12 26.1%.

In the same span the Pac-12 has only 14.6% of their nonconference games against FCS teams compared to 16.8% for the MWC, 18.5% for the Big 12, 19.9% for the Big East, 20.5% for the Big 10, 21.7% for the SEC, and 25.4% for the ACC.

Pac-12 teams played 15 regular season games against nonAQ teams that finished ranked over the last 5 years. All other BCS conferences played 19 COMBINED.

The point of all of this is that the Pac-12 is the LEAST likely of any of the other conferences to say "we've got one major program on our schedule; we're good." It will be no more difficult to schedule Pac-12 teams for BYU now than in the recent past. Yes, UW and ASU have recently canceled with us, but Oregon St. and Washington St. recently signed deals with us.

If Utah hides behind this circumstance not to schedule BYU they would be in direct conflict with the culture established by their conference bretheren. Seeing Utah's desire to fit in I would be really surprised if they discontinued the BYU series over this.