BYU independent for football?

BYU just inked a home-and-home football deal with Texas for 2013 (Provo)-2014 (Austin).

This is in addition to a game that was already on the schedule for 2011 at Texas.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/ncf/news/story?id=5479362

 

Which lends credence to the BYU going independent story. No way Texas agrees to play a game in Provo that will then be on some goofy channel called The mtn. that may or may not even be on the Austin/Houston/San Antonio cable lineup.

 

But they probably have Vs. or CBS College Sports or even CBS, one of which is what that game would be on. Texas played at Wyoming last year. I don't think the TV deal would be something that would keep them from doing what amounts to be a two for one with BYU. The mtn. needs to be more widely distributed, but it means nearly every game of every team is on TV, as opposed to maybe a game or two on ESPN, which believe it or not has helped in the conference's growth. And while it doesn't match financially with the BCS conferences it is the best of the non BCS leauges and far above what ESPN tried to give them last time out. Funny thing about BYU and its discontent with the TV deal is it was their freaking idea.

 

Texas has played at Central Florida and Wyoming the past two years. I wouldn't put too much into that home-and-home.

 

It used to be a pretty entertaining conference at least - those 51-44 Fresno State - San Jose State barnburners on late Saturday nights. Once they lost what they had of the LA market in football (Long Beach and Fullerton) it really faltered. There was a time when San Jose State was the best college football program in Northern California.

 

So now Hawaii is considering going independent in football. Is it officially time to declare the WAC hosed?

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news;_ylt=ArApzPh4jfOAWUgO86Ntagg5nYcB?slug=tsn-166084

 

A very good source on this has told me there will be an announcement on all this after the lawyers finish up on Monday (or Tuesday if they're slow)

 

Can you give a us a hint what the announcement will be?

 

Ah, yes ... around the time I was there. I don't think there's enough server space to detail everything, but to summarize: NCAA changed rules on juco transfers, there was a stretch in the mid-90s when they had for different head coaches in four years, another revolving door in the president's office, Chuck Bell's penny-pinching, Fitz Hill's social agenda and inattention to APRs. Dick Tomey seemed to have the ship righted, but then there was the 1-2 punch of the economy and CSU's wacky finances.

 

Question: If one is not a television sports executive, does anyone really care in which conference a football factory is located, especially the smaller and medium-sized factories? They don't even have much of a carbon footprint.

 

Michael, to your point, there may be schools crunching the numbers and saying that if we're not part of a BCS conference, it's not worth being part of a conference at all. At least if you make the New Orleans Bowl, you don't have to split your booty 10 ways. And Hawaii, if it gets the right schedule, could strike a Tuesdays-on-ESPN2 deal as well as any conference.

 

A total threadjack, but my alma mater announced it's playing Hawaii in the 4 a.m. game during ESPN's 24-hour college basketball marathon this year and I'm rather excited about this.