BYU Football Down To Three Games After MWC Cancels Season
Aug 10, 2020, 5:15 PM | Updated: 5:15 pm
Photo Courtesy of BYU Photo/Jaren Wilkey
PROVO, Utah – BYU football is down to three scheduled games in the 2020 season. That’s it.
The latest subtractions come from BYU’s old conference home, the Mountain West Conference who on Monday announced they are canceling the fall sports season.
— Mountain West (@MountainWest) August 10, 2020
BYU had three games against Mountain West teams on the schedule for 2020 in in-state rival Utah State, Boise State, and San Diego State. Two of those games were scheduled to be played in Provo.
This comes at a time where the entire sport of college football is teetering on being canceled. Multiple reports have stated that the Big Ten Conference is headed towards a canceled season, same with the Pac-12 Conference.
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The Mid-American Conference announced this past Saturday that they were canceling the fall season and going to try and play a spring schedule.
BYU’s three games left on the 2020 schedule include a Labor Day night game against Navy, an October 16th meeting with Houston in Provo, and FCS program North Alabama on November 21st.
Prior to the MWC’s decision to postpone fall sports, BYU coach Kalani Sitake was asked about the uncertainty of the season on Monday, “We’re going to go until they tell us to stop and our mindset is to just get better every day,” said Sitake.
Kalani addressing the uncertainty of the season: "We're going to go until they tell us to stop and our mindset is to just get better every day."#BYU @kslsports
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) August 10, 2020
“I think what we’re trying to work on as a program is to keep this a low-risk environment, practice with our protection that we have. Our masks and the shields on our face masks. And then practice social distancing in our meetings and even at practice during our water breaks, making sure that our guys are masked up if they’re close together. That’s all we can ask our players and our staff and the support staff, everyone here to just keep doing it the right way and being safe and thinking of others and whatever happens, whatever the decisions. That’s not my choice, you know, so whatever everyone decides to do we’ll just follow it, but right now we got to go as if we’re ready to play a game.”
Where BYU goes from here is anyone’s guess. AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco said to Memphis radio station, WMFS, “We want to play b/c we think there’s no medical reason at this point for not playing.”
That could potentially lend hope that BYU could play its scheduled games against Navy and Houston along with some other matchups against teams in the AAC. But nothing is guaranteed amid COVID-19.
2020 BYU Football Schedule
Sept. 7 at Navy
Oct. 16 HOUSTON
Nov. 21 NORTH ALABAMA
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.
