Down to just 3 opponents, independent BYU could be forced to cancel its fall football season
BYU currently has just three games on its 2020 fall football schedule.
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How many games does it take for a school to have legitimate college football season? That answer might be a bit debatable, but it's certainly more than three games – and that's all that independent football program BYU has on its schedule in the wake of the Mountain West Conference on Monday night joining the Mid-American as the two FBS leagues to cancel their fall sports seasons. Reports are that the Big Ten and Pac-12 will do the same on Tuesday.
Thus far, the only three schools to cancel football seasons on their own accord were independents UConn and UMass, and Conference USA's Old Dominion, but independent BYU might be forced to follow. With all due respect to the Huskies, Minutemen and Monarchs, those decisions didn't register much nationally because they are lower-tier football programs. BYU is a national university with its Mormon following and was the last non-current Power Five school to win a national title in 1984.
BYU also has been home to some legendary NCAA quarterbacks like Steve Young, Jim McMahon, Ty Detmer (won the 1990 Heisman) and Robbie Bosco (led that 1984 team).
The Cougars originally were to play several Power Five schools this year: Utah (BYU's biggest rival), Stanford, Arizona State, Missouri, Minnesota and Michigan State. However, the SEC, Pac-12 and Big Ten went to conference-only schedules and, as noted above, the latter two are not expected to play at all this fall.
When the MAC canceled its season, Northern Illinois fell off for BYU and when the Mountain West followed Monday, gone were Utah State, Boise State and San Diego State. That leaves at Navy (an added game) on Sept. 7, vs. Houston on Oct. 16 and vs. North Alabama on Nov. 21. The Cougars also have a bowl tie-in for 2020 with ESPN.
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe is going to find it quite challenging to get to double-digit games. The ACC, Big 12 and SEC might well play this fall, but the SEC, again, has said it will be conference only. The ACC and Big 12 have both scheduled one non-conference game for each school, but in the Big 12 the game must be at home for the conference member and in the ACC it must be played in the state of the league school.
So in theory, BYU could play a few schools from the Big 12 and ACC but does it want to be traveling all the time in a pandemic? And only Clemson currently has a non-conference opening among ACC schools.
Otherwise, that leaves options only from the AAC, Conference USA, Sun Belt, other independents (but not UConn, UMass or Notre Dame, which has joined the ACC for 2020) or FCS schools – and so far, nine FCS leagues have canceled fall sports. How many of those schools are going to want to travel all the way to Provo to play? Or vice-versa?
BYU players have been practicing in fall camp: "We all want to play," quarterback Zach Wilson said Monday. "Every single player here wants to play this year. No doubt about it."
The school has played football since 1922 but didn't from 1943-45 during World War II. BYU has finished 7-6 each of the past two seasons under Coach Kalani Sitake.
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