The BYU Cougars and the UNLV Rebels have canceled their football series scheduled for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, according to tweets by Dave McCann.
BYU and UNLV were scheduled to play a home-and-home football series with games slated for Nov. 4, 2023 at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah, and Nov. 2, 2024 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. The series was scheduled back in 2018.
With the BYU Cougars moving from a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Independent to the Big 12 Conference in 2023, the Cougars have been paring down their scheduled non-conference opponents since they will only play three per season moving forward.
The UNLV series in 2023 and 2024 is the latest to get the axe, per Dave McCann, who calls the play-by-play for BYU football.
FBSchedules attempted to confirm the cancellation through a public records request to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. According to UNLV, they possess no document regarding the cancellation. That’s not unusual as many of BYU’s football contracts, including this one, contain an automatic out-clause should they join a Power Five conference.
With the cancellation of the UNLV games, BYU is now down to five non-conference games in 2023 and nine in 2024. Some of those games could have already been canceled but not yet publicly reported.
BYU and UNLV first met on the gridiron in 1978 (in Yokohama, Japan) and have played 20 times overall. In their most recent meeting in 2017, the Cougars defeated the Rebels 31-21 in Las Vegas to widen their lead in the series to 17-3.
Football Schedules