

He’s now long gone, and Texas and OU are heading to the door.The top two football teams in the Big 12 Conference will face off in the 2021 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship at 11AM on Saturday, December 4th at AT&T Stadium. We are committed to staying with the conference.” But rumors persisted that BYU’s stance on some social issues caused Big 12 presidents to bag the entire expansion idea because the Cougars were the best, and only viable, candidate to some.Ĭoincidentally, at the time Boren also said, “There’s not a single school looking to leave the conference.
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For instance, BYU became heavily involved in the NCAA’s Common Ground Initiative, a movement that aims to provide “LGBTQ organizations and faith-based organizations an opportunity to discuss commonalities and differences and learn how to work more cohesively within athletics.”Īt the time, Oklahoma president David Boren said the decision not to expand was unanimous and there was no vote or discussion about any particular school. They also went to work building bridges between BYU and the LGTBQ community after protests from the latter were cited by some as the reason the Cougars were left out in 2016. We believe BYU can significantly contribute to the athletic and academic excellence of a P5 conference.”

… BYU strives to run its athletic program like a P5 institution. In a statement BYU released that day, the school said it “has learned a lot about its strengths as an institution and as an athletic department. That announcement crushed BYU’s hopes of joining a Power Five conference, but Holmoe and BYU administrators stayed the course and continued to work toward improving their overall athletic program. 17, 2016, that it would not be expanding after a lengthy process that involved examining the merits of BYU and nearly two dozen other schools.

One of BYU’s selling points to the Big 12 was that mobility made possible by independence. Presumably, most or all of the other contracts since BYU became an independent include the same language, as Brown also reported. The BYU-Utah game contracts for the 20-2028 games, which the Deseret News obtained in 2020, include language that allows BYU to get out of paying a $1 million buyout if it has to cancel due to joining a league with at least four Power Five schools. So what happens to BYU’s other existing contracts?Īccording to Matt Brown, publisher of the Extra Points newsletter, most of BYU’s contracts - which he acquired through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from public schools the Cougars are playing in the future - call for the games to be canceled with no buyout penalties if the Cougars join a Power Five league. The alliance between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 has officially arrived.Less than two months after Big 12 schools Texas and Oklahoma sent shock waves throughout college sports by announcing they were leaving for the powerful SEC, the eight remaining schools signaled their commitment to stay together by inviting BYU, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati on Friday. Competing on the Big 12 stage provides more opportunities for our student-athletes. Membership in the Big 12 gives us the opportunity to reinforce that commitment for student-athletes, allowing them to compete at the highest level both on and off the field.”Īdded athletic director Tom Holmoe: “We have said all along that the decisions about where we play, who we play and what conference we compete in are about the student-athletes first and how we can help them achieve excellence. “The BYU mission statement indicates that BYU is a place where ‘a commitment to excellence is expected.’ We strive to meet that requirement in all we do, including our core academic enterprise. “This is an historic day for BYU Athletics - and for the entire university,” BYU president Kevin J Worthen said in a statement. Men’s volleyball will continue to play in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, as the Big 12 does not offer the sport. The school said it will start participating in the conference in the 2023-24 school year.īYU will play all sports provided by the Big 12 except for equestrian, rowing and wrestling. After a long and sometimes tortuous courtship which dates back nearly 40 years, BYU and the Big 12 Conference are finally coming together.Ĭougar sports and the Power Five became officially engaged on Friday, when BYU formally accepted an invitation to the conference.
