Why the Big 12's scheduling decision on Utah-BYU rivalry football game will backfire

Next season's Holy War game will be contending with several other power conference matchups for viewership

BYU Cougars quarterback Bear Bachmeier (47) rolls out of the pocket against Utah Utes defensive tackle Semi Taulanga (99) during the second half at LaVell Edwards Stadium. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

If there was ever a time Utah and BYU fans saw eye-to-eye, it was during the Big 12 football schedule release last week.

As the league announced the nine-game slate for each of its members, it was revealed that the Holy War won't be played on the final weekend of the regular season, when a majority of college football rivalry games traditionally take place.

Instead of lining up one of the sport's most iconic rivalries for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Big 12 decided that, for the sake of exposure and tradition, the Utes and Cougars will play Nov. 7 — a day that presumably won't have as many high-profile games competing for TV ratings.

That idea was defensible for about a week. Then the ACC and Big Ten released their respective conference schedules.

What was thought to be just another Saturday around the sport has since turned into a jam-packed day of big-time power conference matchups: Oregon-Ohio State, Miami-Notre Dame, Alabama-LSU, Georgia-Ole Miss and Penn State-Washington, to name a few. That's six teams from last season's College Football Playoff, plus a few massive brands in Notre Dame, LSU and Penn State, squaring off in what very well could five matchups pitting preseason top-25 teams against one another on the same day. In fact, all 10 of the aforementioned teams are ranked in ESPN's way-too-early top 25 rankings for 2026.

Kickoff times for Nov. 7 contests won't be revealed until closer to game day, though it's certain Utah-BYU won't be the main course for most college football fans outside of Salt Lake City and Provo.

The Holy War wasn't exactly the go-to game for outsiders last season, when the Utes and Cougars drew in about 2 million viewers for their Oct. 18 matchup at LaVell Edwards Stadium, per Nielsen, and got beat out by 10 other games in the final TV ratings tally. It wasn't even the most-watched Big 12 game that day, a distinction that went to the Texas Tech-Arizona State matchup (2.56 million viewers). Funnily enough, the Red Raiders and Sun Devils game aired on the same channel as the Holy War and got done just before Utah and BYU got underway.

Obviously, the Big 12 can't control viewership or other conference schedules with the snap of its fingers. Putting the Holy War up against The Game (Michigan-Ohio State), Iron Bowl (Alabama-Auburn) and Egg Bowl (Mississippi State-Ole Miss) on the final day of the regular season would probably not help its exposure one bit, either. But given the magnitude of Utah-BYU — and the fact that every Saturday is competitive from a TV standpoint these days — the Utes and Cougars might as well play on the final weekend of the regular season.

The alternative for the Big 12's Week 13 slate is a set of OK matchups that may or may not have any impact on deciding which two teams will play in Arlington, Texas, the following week for the conference championship.

Of course, it's hard to say for certain what the race for the league title will look like on Nov. 27. But even then, Big 12 schedule-makers should want its biggest and most important matchups played on the final day of the regular season. Drama and high-stakes are components of any compelling TV program; wouldn't scheduling the game that's the most likely to impact the conference championship and subsequently, the College Football Playoff, be the best way to achieve those two things if you're the Big 12?

The counterpoint the Big 12 has made is that most of its rivalry games outside of Arizona-Arizona State historically aren't played on the final weekend of the regular season. That's fair. But if maximizing exposure is part of the goal too, then the league should be trying new scheduling methods, because it's way behind the other power conferences in terms of viewership numbers.

Of the 100 most-watched college football games this past season, only four were Big 12 conference games (including the championship game between BYU and Texas Tech). The only such game that didn't feature the Red Raiders was the Week 0 matchup between Iowa State and Kansas State in Dublin, Ireland, which drew 4.77 million viewers (No. 77 most-watched game of the season).

Having to track tiebreakers instead of watching the best teams earn their way into the conference championship game in head-to-head matchups is already a less-than-ideal way of handling the Saturday after Thanksgiving; depriving fans of the league's best rivalry games, all for the sake of protecting traditions that are relatively loose, makes for a completely lackluster way to end the regular season.

Blindly shooting for the best possible to day to play the Holy War and landing on the first Saturday in November isn't going to fix that problem, either.