BYU Football Learns Big 12 Opponents For Next Four Years
Nov 1, 2023, 12:46 PM | Updated: Nov 2, 2023, 11:35 am
PROVO, Utah – The 16-team Big 12 era is almost here for BYU football. That new era will bring back the rivalry with Utah as a conference matchup.
The Big 12 Conference rolled out its scheduling matrix for the 2024, 2025, 2026, and 2027 football seasons. No dates were announced in the scheduling matrix rollout, but it painted a picture of which teams BYU will face in the 16-team Big 12 for the next four years.
𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝟏𝟐 𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒. pic.twitter.com/TuSvkXOI0m
— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) November 1, 2023
Utah is the lone team on BYU’s four conference schedules until 2027.
2024 BYU football Big 12 opponents
Home: Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State
Away: Arizona State, Utah, Baylor, UCF
2025
Home: Utah, TCU, West Virginia, UCF
Away: Arizona, Colorado, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Cincinnati
2026
Home: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, Iowa State, Cincinnati
Away: Utah, TCU, Kansas, UCF
2027
Home: Utah, Colorado, Texas Tech, Kansas
Away: Arizona State, Houston, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, West Virginia
Initial reaction to the BYU football matrix of Big 12 teams
The first thing that pops off the page is that BYU football didn’t take a page from Texas A&M. When the SEC added Texas to its league, the Aggies demanded that the first rivalry game against the Longhorns would be played in College Station. The SEC accommodated that request to the school that joined the SEC first.
Historically, BYU has always hosted Utah in Provo on odd-numbered years, and Utah hosts in the even years. That continues into the early years of the 16-team Big 12 era.
BYU will face three “Four Corner” schools on the 2024 schedule. The travel schedule will be relatively light next season as the road trips include trips to Salt Lake City and Tempe, Arizona. BYU avoids Coach Prime and Colorado next season.
The longest road game in the league will be at UCF. But only one East Coast trip in the season.
Two carryovers from the 2023 schedule for next season
It was always expected that the 2023 schedule would be a one-off in the Big 12 due to Texas and Oklahoma departing. Then, the carryover between the 2023 season and 2024 became less likely due to the additions of the Four Corner schools.
BYU will face two teams on its Big 12 schedule in 2023. Those two teams are Kansas and Oklahoma State. Both will be traveling to LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo.
Three years with Arizona schools
Arizona and Arizona State will appear on BYU’s conference schedules in three of the next four years. Michael Crow, President of Arizona State, has publicly stated that he wanted to see a strong presence of geography in future schedule models. The Big 12 has delivered on that as BYU will face its old WAC rivals three times each in the next four seasons.
BYU will only face Colorado twice over the next four years.
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.
