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PROVO — The BYU and Utah football programs don't agree on much. But one thing they agree on is the importance of playing annually, as announced jointly Monday morning.
The two schools will meet in a home-and-home series extending into the 2024 season, both schools announced simultaneously.
The announcement is a two-game extension to the previous series that went through the 2022 series, adding a game Sept. 16, 2023, in Provo and Sept. 7, 2024, in Salt Lake City.
And though tempers fumed several years ago, which resulted in the two sides taking a year off from the rivalry, and with the Utes' nine-game Pac 12 schedule making out-of-conference scheduling tricky, (even for a longtime rival), playing the game seems to be important for both athletic directors — namely new Utah boss Mark Harlan.
The former USF athletic director called his first rivalry game "awesome" after the Utes rallied from a 20-0 deficit for a 35-27 victory at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
"Everyone kind of behaved, which is something that Tom Holmoe and I really had talked about, trying to remind everybody to have some fun. Early signs of that was it went really well," Harlan said about a week after the game. "I thought it was terrific. I love the way it ended, I know that part was great. But I thought it was a great day all the way around."
The two teams will meet early in the season for the next six seasons, beginning with the 2019 season opener Aug. 29 in Provo. Utah will host the return to Rice-Eccles Stadium either Sept. 3, 4 or 5, 2020, with a trip to Provo scheduled for Sept. 11, 2021, and a game in Salt Lake City on Sept. 3, 2022.
August's game will be either the 94th or 100th game in the rivalry series, depending on who you ask. BYU claims a 31-58-4 all-time record against the Utes, while Utah cites six games played when BYU was known as Brigham Young Academy for a 61-34-4 overall record in favor of the Salt Lake school.
With the additions, BYU, which has competed as an FBS independent since 2011, has nine teams on its 2023 schedule. The Utes will be the third Pac 12 opponent on the schedule, joining USC and Stanford, while BYU will open the season at home Sept. 2 against Tennessee.
BYU’s 2024 schedule has seven opponents, including former Western Athletic Conference rival Wyoming and a road trip to ACC country at North Carolina State.
The Utes will open the 2023 season against FCS foe Weber State, with road trips to Baylor and BYU to round out non conference play.
In addition to BYU, Utah will also play Southern Utah and Baylor as part of its 2024 nonconference schedule.
