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Nevada adds BYU, Eastern Washington to 2024 football schedule

By Brian Wilmer - January 20, 2022
Nevada Wolf Pack

Photo: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The Nevada Wolf Pack have added the BYU Cougars and Eastern Washington Eagles to their 2024 football schedule, Nevada Sports Net reported Wednesday.

The network obtained the contracts for the games through a public records request. It was determined that the games were finalized in November of 2021.

The BYU game will be contested Saturday, Aug. 31 in Provo, breaking the seal on the season for both clubs. The Eastern Washington game will take place Saturday, Sept. 21 in Reno. Each game is operating on a one-game agreement.

Nevada will receive a small guarantee of $100,000 from BYU for the game in Provo, while the Wolf Pack will pay Eastern Washington $400,000 for their contest. The small BYU payment likely means their is another stipulation to that contest that is outlined in a separate document.

BYU has won five of the ten games played (two ties) between the Wolf Pack and Cougars, played largely while the Cougars were still part of the Mountain West. Nevada won the most recent contest, 42-35, at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo in 2014.

Eastern Washington is located in Cheney, Wash., and is currently a member of the Big Sky Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Eagles finished the 2021 campaign 10-3 (6-2 Big Sky) and were part of the final top 10 in both FCS polls. Montana eliminated EWU in a 57-41 result in the second round of the FCS playoffs.

Nevada now has three known non-conference opponents set for the 2024 season. The Wolf Pack are also slated to visit Minnesota on Saturday, Sept. 14.

BYU was slated to host UCF to begin the 2024 campaign. That game will be rescheduled when the Big 12 releases its 2024 league slate. Eastern Washington has no other non-league tilts planned for 2024 at the moment.

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View Comments (9)

Comments (9)

This is particularly odd, as BYU already needs to cut games on account of realignment.

This makes me think that BYU likely acted on the exit clause they had worked into virtually every G5 game contract. So 2024 games like Hawaii, ECU, UNLV likely gone. Perhaps back halves of home and homes like Wyoming and Ga Southern too.

Yeah, basically what everyone else is saying… BYU scheduling new teams right now is a little strange. UCF could potentially be on their conference slate (though, for their sake, hopefully cross-divisionally?) but they have a LOT of games to cancel to get down to 3 or 4 (probably 3?) non-conference games.

Maybe the clue is in the date: UCF is going to be in the same conference and perhaps some of these other teams were unable to reschedule for that date, leaving BYU needing to fill their season opener, even while they’re scrapping all but 2 or 3 of the rest of their slate?

Jeff,

Astute reasoning as usual.

Since BYU had to jump through so many Hoops to put 12 Years of Independent Schedules together; while working for an Invitation to an Autonomous 5 Conference, ya think the Contracts would have every contingency planned for, except Coronavirus 2020?

Exactly. I guess the real questions are, how many OOC games will the Big 12 have (3 seems very likely, but not a confirmed certainty yet), and which games will BYU keep?

It seems likely that the first 3 or 4 weeks of the season would be the ideal OOC weeks for the Big 12, but again, not set in stone. Nevada, @ Utah, and either Hawaii or @ Wyoming?