BYU Football Finds Non-Conference Game For 2024 Season
Oct 30, 2023, 4:23 PM | Updated: 4:36 pm
BYU football head coach Kalani Sitake and SMU coach Rhett Lashlee. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images)
(Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images)
PROVO, Utah – BYU football needed a non-conference game added to its 2024 schedule after rival Utah officially joined the Big 12 Conference.
The Cougars appear to have found that game.
#BYU football adds home-and-home series with SMU.
BYU will travel to Dallas in 2024. The Mustangs will return to Provo in 2027.
SMU is moving into the ACC in 2024.#BYUFootball
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) October 30, 2023
It was announced on Monday that BYU has lined up a home-and-home series with the SMU Mustangs. BYU will travel to SMU in the 2024 season, then SMU will pay a return visit to Provo in 2027.
Home-and-home series for BYU football with SMU
What’s notable about this series is that it fills a Power Five scheduling requirement set by the Big 12 Conference to play at least one Autonomous Five in the non-conference. SMU is joining the Atlantic Coast Conference beginning in 2024.
After BYU lost the Utah game in the non-conference portion of their schedule, BYU had an opening for an out-of-league date.
No date was announced for the SMU game in 2024. The Mustangs have an opening for September 7, 2024, the date that BYU/Utah was supposed to play.
BYU’s non-conference schedule for 2024 currently includes a home game against Southern Illinois on August 31 and a road game at Wyoming on September 14.
The Big 12 portion of the schedule is expected to be announced in late November/early December, according to Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark. Big 12 membership will jump up to 16 teams in 2024 with the additions of Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado.
SMU is moving into the ACC
BYU’s series with SMU coincides with the ACC rolling out its future opponents over the next seven years in the new iteration of the league. Along with SMU, the ACC is adding Stanford and Cal to the league, which will now grow to 18 members.
BYU and SMU have a brief but rich history against one another. The two staged one of the greatest bowl games in college football history in 1980 when BYU stormed back from 20 points down with less than four minutes to defeat the Pony Express 46-45.
The two programs were once in the same 16-team WAC together from 1996-98.
Then, last year, both programs squared off in the 2022 New Mexico Bowl. BYU won that game 24-23.
Two games against Weber State
Along with a home-and-home series with SMU, BYU announced two future games against Weber State on September 4, 2027, and August 31, 2030.
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 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X and Threads: @Mitch_Harper.
