Monday, January 14, 2013

BYU's 2013 Schedule as of January 2013.

Updated January 17, 2013

As of January 16, 2013, BYU may have 2 games to schedule in 2013.  Last week on twitter, Tom Holmoe was presented with a list of FBS teams that still need to schedule a 2013 game.  He was asked if the final 2013 opponent would be one of these teams or an FCS team, he said, "Guess again."

This means that BYU's 12th 2013 opponent will be neither a team on that list: Duke, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Marshall, Tulane, Missouri or Texas State nor an FCS opponent.  That leaves 2 options: 1. A team that can use the Hawaii exception or a team that has a cancellation that has not been made public.

I believed that Air Force would be that 12th game, but that appears not to be in place any longer.  In fact, the 12 team MWC takes away a lot of options for BYU.

But, here are some possibilities:

1.  Arkansas: If the game at Hawaii is canceled, it is known that Southern Mississippi is trying to soften their schedule.  BYU and Arkansas could hook up in 2013 in Fayetteville, none the less.  There would be no better time to get this done.


2.  UTEP: Colorado State has scheduled UTEP as a 13th game.  If they do not end up playing at Hawaii, then they will have to cancel this game.  BYU could pick it up.

3.  Army: Hawaii may cancel a game because of the championship game.  BYU sells tickets in Hawaii, Army is not such a big sell.  It would make more money for Hawaii to cancel Army and reschedule BYU.  BYU and Amry could then hook up.

4.  San Jose State, Nevada or San Diego State...someone who plays on the road at Hawaii could schedule BYU.

BYU's 2013 schedule:

August 31 @ Virginia
September 7 Texas
September 14 Open: Possibilities--@Hawaii,  @Arkansas or FCS.
September 21 Utah
September 28 Open: Possibilities--@Hawaii, San Jose State, UTEP or FCS
October 4 (Friday) @ Utah State
October 12 Georgia Tech
October 19 @ Houston
October 26 Boise State
November 2 Open: Possibilities: Nevada, San Diego State or San Jose State
November 9 @ Wisconsin
November 16 Middle Tennessee
November 23 @ Notre Dame
November 30 Open: Possible: Army
December 7 @ Hawaii (Will be dropped or rescheduled.)

According to Hawaii's chat board, the BYU @ Hawaii game will be dropped and not rescheduled.  The reason is that Hawaii has 13 games scheduled and they don't need to reschedule the game.  However, Hawaii sells a lot of tickets when BYU comes to town.  I have a difficult time believing that the game will just get dropped.

It will be no sooner than 1/21 before this is resolved.   The MWC Athletic Directors will get together on Monday to determine divisions and schedules.  Most tweets from observers seem to agree that the MWC divisions will be as follows: Fresno State/Hawaii/Nevada/UNLV/SDSU and SJSU in one division and Air Force/Boise State/Colorado State/New Mexico/Utah State and Wyoming in the other.

An 8 game schedule means all 5 opponents from your division plus 3 opponents from the other division to have 4 home games and 4 road games.  Based upon the 2012 schedule, Hawaii would play San Diego State and Fresno State at home with UNLV on the road.  They did not play Nevada nor SJSU in 2012.  They will probably split these two.  If CSU is to play CSU in Honolulu, the other two cross-divisional games would be in the road. Air Force and BYU probably will not happen.

Hawaii's games:

Home MWC games:
San Diego State
Fresno State
San Jose State or Nevada
Colorado State

Road MWC Games:
UNLV
San Jose State or Nevada
Boise State or New Mexico
Utah State or Wyoming

Hawaii could still keep BYU and Army on the schedule and still have a bye week in the season.  But in 2012, Hawaii had 12 games and 2 bye weeks after Temple canceled their game at Hawaii.  The other ADs in the MWC would need to be complicit.

We will no for certain after the MWC athletic directors meet next week.

My hunch is that BYU and Hawaii will reschedule their game and that BYU will finish their schedule against an FCS team.

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