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National Analysts Want the PAC-12 to Schedule BYU

Jon Wilner of Mercury News reported that the PAC-12 is hoping to approve non-conference games
Casey Lundquist|
National Analysts Want the PAC-12 to Schedule BYU
National Analysts Want the PAC-12 to Schedule BYU

On Wednesday morning, Jon Wilner of the Mercury News reported that the PAC-12 is "hurtling towards a significant policy reversal after the athletic directors agreed this week to allow non-conference games if a league matchup is canceled because of COVID-19 issues." That change, however, "requires approval from the presidents and chancellors, who had previously banned non-conference games for the 2020 season." When Wilner published his story, national analysts started lobbying to see BYU play the PAC-12 this season.

BYU had Utah, Arizona State, and Stanford on the original schedule. When the PAC-12 cancelled their non-conference games, BYU was forced to find less formidable replacement opponents like Navy and Troy. BYU is now 8-0 and ranked in the top 10, but many national pundits want see BYU test themselves against a P5 opponent.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports said BYU matchups against the PAC-12 "could alter the playoff race."

Andy Staples wants to see BYU play PAC-12 frontrunners Oregon and USC:

James Crepea reached out to Oregon and reported that there have "been no talks between Oregon and BYU about adding a game."

That report is not surprising, the PAC-12 wouldn't change their schedule to include BYU. This policy would create last-minute matchups when one PAC-12 team is without a game. In theory, if Oregon's game were canceled next weekend, they could call BYU and ask for a game. 

Dan Rubenstein joked that BYU "can do better than USC, checked off that box last year."

In his report, Wilner noted that non-conference games would be added "especially where it geographically or historically makes sense." Obviously, Utah is the game that comes to mind. Utah is scheduled to play Arizona State next weekend and the Sun Devils are currently dealing with a large COVID-19 outbreak in their program - BYU does not have a game scheduled next weekend. So what would need to happen for BYU to play Utah this year?

  1. The PAC-12 presidents and chancellors would have to reverse their initial decision
  2. Arizona State-Utah would need to be cancelled
  3. All other PAC-12 schools would have a game to play
  4. Both BYU and Utah would have to agree to a game on short notice

Would BYU agree to a game against Utah? It's too early to tell, but Tom Holmoe is aware of the news - he joked on Twitter this morning that BYU fans were slow to react to the scheduling news:

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Casey Lundquist
CASEY LUNDQUIST

Casey Lundquist is the publisher and lead editor of BYU On SI. He has covered BYU athletics since 2020. During that time, he has published over 3,500 stories that have reached millions of readers.

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