Holmoe didn’t announce any new additions to the schedule. Rather, he said that two teams under contract for the 2013 season requested to back out.
“We had the schedule relatively set; we were done,” said Holmoe, “and two teams, one of them under contract, asked to get out–which we did–and one team that was not under contract, but for all intents and purposes, it was done…(they) bailed out.”
The two teams that “bailed out” have yet to be identified, but it appears they have already been replaced. As reported by KSL.com, Holmoe said “we’ve contracted a couple of games in the last couple of days.”
We can only speculate as to the two teams that canceled on the Cougars. It could have been the last two teams to be scheduled, which were never made public. Some BYU fans have speculated that one of the schools could be Utah.
Yesterday, Desert News furnished some information regarding the future of the BYU-Notre Dame series. The two schools agreed to a 6-year contract back in 2010. But so far, only one of those games has been played and another is set for 2013.
“We might take a big break until we play them again,” Holmoe told the Deseret News. That’s good news for BYU fans that don’t want to see the Irish cancel the remaining four games against the Cougars. However, Holmoe did say this later…”Who knows what’s going to happen between now and then? I take them a year at a time.”
Prior to the “who knows” comment, Holmoe listed the reasons why Notre Dame should continue to play BYU.
“They still need seven more games,” Holmoe said. “They have some games that they traditionally play. But we’re playing them two-for-one, which is a good deal for them. And it’s a good game. Going back there this year and playing them strong, we got good feedback from Notre Dame and their administration and staff. There’s good respect between their players and our players. It’s a good matchup between schools. Notre Dame doesn’t play just anybody. They play schools that they feel are good academic schools and schools that stand for something.”
Notre Dame will have a slight scheduling crunch due to their agreement to play five ACC teams per season beginning as early as 2014. The Irish also want to keep yearly games against Navy, Stanford, and USC. That leaves them with four-conference slots open, but less in years they play other long-standing rivals such as Michigan, Michigan State or Purdue.
The BYU Cougars currently have 11 games on their 2013 schedule and can play 13 since they are traveling to Hawaii. Here is what their schedule looks like now, but it is certainly subject to change.
- 09/07 – Texas
- 09/21 – Boise State
- 10/04 – at Utah State
- 10/12 – Georgia Tech
- 10/19 – at Houston
- 11/09 – at Wisconsin
- 11/23 – at Notre Dame
- 12/07 – at Hawaii
- TBA – Middle Tennessee State
- TBA – Utah
- TBA – at Washington State