Predicting 2025 BYU Football TV Schedule For Early-Season Games
May 8, 2025, 10:25 AM
PROVO, Utah – We’re getting closer to learning some kickoff times for the 2025 BYU football schedule.
Typically, in May each year, network executives from media partners who broadcast college football games reveal their game selections for the first three weeks of the season, plus weeknight games.
August 30th is just down the road 🤙
— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) May 6, 2025
Last season, we were two-for-four on the picks, correctly guessing the SIU and SMU games, but wrong on the trip to Wyoming (CBSSN, not FS1), and the Friday night home clash against Oklahoma State (ESPN, not FOX).
Putting on a TV executive cap for college football is always one of my favorite assignments each year. In 2023, we got three of four in predicting BYU’s early-season designations.
Let’s see how we do in 2025.
BYU Football Schedule: Predicting TV, Kickoff Times for 2025 season
The Big 12 Conference enters year one of its new contract agreement with ESPN and FOX.
So any BYU home game or road game in conference play will fall under the Big 12 television rights. Nonconference road games like the September 20 trip to East Carolina will fall under the American Athletic Conference’s TV rights with ESPN.
The trip to Greenville, North Carolina, is in week four of the college football schedule, so it likely won’t get an early-season TV designation. That would leave it at a 12- or six-day selection window.
BYU football enters the 2025 season with high expectations.
The Cougars finished 2024 with an 11-2 record and a dominant Alamo Bowl victory over the Colorado Buffaloes that included former Buff stars Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter.
BYU checks in at No. 10 for the 2025 season in ESPN’s Post-Spring Top 25.
When you’re viewed in high regard like that, does that open up more highly visible television spots?
Here are my TV predictions for the first two weeks of the season and weeknight games.
BYU vs. Portland State
Date: Saturday, August 30, 2025
TV & Kickoff Prediction: ESPN+, 6 p.m. (MT)
Big 12 programs get to choose the kickoff time for games that air on ESPN+.
Last year, BYU selected a nighttime kickoff at 6 p.m. (MT) against Southern Illinois. That worked out well, showcasing the new light system at LaVell Edwards Stadium and the electric night-game environment.
Why not do the same thing against Portland State?
The last time BYU played Portland State was in 2017. That was a Week 0, nationally televised ESPN game where the country sat through a slog of a game that BYU won, 20-6. Let’s all hope this 2025 meeting of the Cougs and Vikings is more enjoyable to watch.
BYU vs. Stanford
Date: Saturday, September 6, 2025
TV & Kickoff Prediction: FOX, 8 p.m. (MT)
Storylines are key whenever projecting early-season television selections for teams that aren’t the mega brands of college football.
The BYU/Stanford matchup has the potential for good storylines that could warrant a late-night network TV window.
BYU’s storyline would be that they are possibly in the Top 25. Then you add the Bachmeier brothers’ transfer from Stanford to BYU. It makes the nonconference matchup a little more intriguing.
Plus, for Stanford, they are coached this season by former NFL headman Frank Reich, while Cardinal great Andrew Luck calls the shots as the program’s general manager. That’s good stuff.
Then, if you’re FOX, you can bring in an ACC audience, which they rarely get as the ACC is partnered with ESPN.
Games that could derail this projection include Clay Helton and Georgia Southern traveling to his old team in Los Angeles to face USC, or Oklahoma State at Oregon. But I’ll call for the Pokes and Ducks to get the afternoon FOX slot.
BYU vs. West Virginia
Date: Friday, October 3, 2025
TV & Kickoff Prediction: ESPN, 8:15 p.m. (MT)
BYU’s Friday night home games during the Big 12 era have been late-night showdowns on ESPN (2023 Cincinnati and 2024 Oklahoma State). I’d expect more of the same when BYU hosts Rich Rodriguez and the West Virginia Mountaineers for the first time in Provo.
Three college football games are currently scheduled for Friday, October 3. FOX hasn’t announced its Friday night schedule yet, but it was primarily Big Ten games last year.
So that makes me think ESPN will go with a Friday night double-header that starts with an AAC matchup of Charlotte at South Florida and then BYU-West Virginia as the second game in a late-night spotlight.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
