BYU athletics director Tom Holmoe held his semiannual roundtable discussion on the state of his program today. Of the many topics he discussed, two concerned future football games against Utah and Notre Dame.
As you are probably aware, the “Holy War” series between BYU and Utah was not played in 2014 and won’t be played in 2015 due to conference expansion. The absence of the matchup last season marked the first interruption in the series since 1942.
The two schools next meet on Sept. 10, 2016 at Utah to complete a home-and-home series that began in 2013. Another two-game series kicks off on Sept. 9, 2017 in Provo with the second game in Salt Lake City on Nov. 24, 2018.
Today at the roundtable, Holmoe stated that the two schools are working on another agreement for 2019 and 2020.
Holmoe offered some more insight into the future of that series, courtesy of Greg Wrubell of KSL.com.
“For me, I just want to make sure that we have the series,” Holmoe stated. “We’re willing to work it out. It’s not that we’re going to stand on our head. It’s harder sometimes for us to schedule an early game now than it is to schedule a later game. But for them, it’s easier to schedule an earlier game. So, we’re just going to have to figure out a way to work it out. It might have to be that one (school) gives on one year and takes on the other year.”
Utah leads the “Holy War” series against BYU 54-31-4. The Utes beat the Cougars 20-13 in their last meeting in 2013 to extend their winning streak to four straight.
Tom Holmoe also touched on the status of their six-game football series with Notre Dame. The series, which was agreed to back in 2010, included four games in South Bend and two games in Provo.
However, primarily due to Notre Dame agreeing to play five ACC games per year, the Cougars and Irish have only played two of the six games, and both were in South Bend.
That leaves two games to be played in South Bend and two games in Provo, the latter of which might never be played.
Again via Greg Wrubell, Tom Holmoe elaborated on the situation with Notre Dame, which has been dangling in the wind for a few years now.
“When they (Notre Dame) had the opportunity to do a scheduling agreement with the ACC it changed things, ” Holmoe said. “It’s hard for me to take a real hard stand on that because, somewhere in the future, we might have to do the same thing.”
“We’re going to work it out one way or another. If they come back to play us (in Provo), that would be great. If they don’t, then there will be some type of settlement and we’ll part as friends.”
The BYU-Notre Dame series was also discussed by Holmoe in a roundtable discussion prior to the 2014 season. Nothing appears to have changed on that front and BYU would still love to get the Irish at least once at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
While BYU continues to cope with the challenges of scheduling as one of only three FBS Independents, they also still have aspirations of joining a conference.
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