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PROVO — When BYU and the Big 12 Conference announced they were forming a union back in September, there was plenty of rejoicing in Provo, including from athletic director Tom Holmoe.
But then the athletic director since 2005 had a very different thought.
"My first thought was, oh no; we have so much work to do," Holmoe said with a semi-tongue in cheek tone Thursday during his semi-annual media question-and-answer session on campus. "It just seems to me like there's a lot of work to do and very little time.
"The more you think about it and project what you need, and what needs to change or stay the same, there's a lot of strategy involved."
The unraveling of BYU football's schedules over the next five years is perhaps at the top of mind for Holmoe, for obvious reasons, as the tenured athletic director begins the Herculean task of unraveling much of his life's work over the past decade over the remaining 18 months as a Football Bowl Subdivision independent and member of the West Coast Conference in most other sports.
But if you're expecting a new set of nonconference opponents for the Cougars' schedule as it adapts to Power Five football life, the message was clear: don't. After building out at least a handful of opponents as far out as the 2035 season in anticipation of life as a Football Bowl Subdivision independent, the Cougars' biggest task is no longer who, but who not to play.
"We're already contracted to play several teams for several years," Holmoe said. "That probably won't change. You aren't going to see any new teams come on to the schedule for several years.
"We're trying to take teams out, not add teams," he added.
That includes a home game added to 2024 against Nevada, one that the Wolf Pack revealed via public records request by Nevada Sports Net last month that will take the place of a previously scheduled contest Aug. 31 against UCF.
That game will be moved to later in the season as part of the new Big 12 schedule. The Cougars already had the Nevada game set up from an earlier contract, Holmoe added.
Truthfully, there will probably be plenty of scheduling news that gets fleshed out through the 11th hour as BYU works to untangle a decades' worth of contracts with dozens of institutions, including many in the Pac-12.
The Big 12 will play 8-9 conference games when BYU, Cincinnati, UCF and Houston first join the league in 2023 — exactly how many hasn't been ironed out yet, Holmoe said — and are currently set to compete for at least two years with Texas and Oklahoma before the two Red River rivals depart for the Southeastern Conference.
That means a return to Big 12 divisional play, though how those divisions are organized is also up for debate. Some have called for a geographic division — BYU fans would certainly prefer an East-West split that keeps travel to Orlando and Morgantown, West Virginia at a minimum — while other theories have postulated a results-based split similar to the Big Ten's former Legends and Leaders concept that was scrapped after three seasons a decade ago.
"We've got subcommittees in several sports that are talking about structure," Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told CBS Sports. "Conference office, staff, ADs, sports administrators and coaches involved on a sport-by-sport basis, they're all doing the same thing."
As far as prioritizing who stays on the schedule, Holmoe declined to comment on individual schools except those with one criteria: in-state rivals Utah and Utah State.
"I think it's important that we have a really good tradition of playing the in-state schools," said Holmoe, who now finds himself with the unenviable task of removing as many as eight or nine dates from the team's schedule through the 2026 season. "For the initial part of our schedule, we won't be able to (play everyone) in some areas."
Holmoe said the scheduling of games will go "first and foremost" to head coach Kalani Sitake, then to whether the Cougars can legally disavow themselves of a game. Most of BYU's game contracts over the past decade have included opt-out language related to the Cougars joining a Power Five conference, but not all, to cancel the game without a fee.
But those in-state games against the Utes and Aggies? They won't go anywhere, or at least, as many of them as Holmoe can salvage. That may include preempting other series, such as the 10-game contract with regional rival Boise State that was set to begin in 2025, as Broncos athletic director Jeremiah Dickey said earlier this week in an impromptu Twitter question-and-answer session with fans.
The Cougars are scheduled to face Utah State in Provo in 2022, with the return trip to Logan in 2023 — what would be the first year of Big 12 play. The two Wagon Wheel rivals also have dates scheduled from 2024-26.
The Utes will return to the schedule following a two-year break in 2024, and the two sides currently have a contract to play annually through 2028, as well as a rescheduled date in 2030 that is the makeup for a game canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Holmoe played a key role in moving two games against Utah so the Utes could schedule a home-and-home series with Florida over the next two years, in large part because he knew the time would come when BYU would be asking for similar concessions upon joining a Power Five league like the Utes did a decade ago.
"I knew when the time would come that we got into a Power Five conference, that we'd be in the same situation (as Utah)," he said. "That's the situation we are in right now — so I can comprehend where we were and where it's going."
That's the biggest transition in Holmoe's job for moving to the Cougars' new conference home, but it isn't the only one. For each of his coaches on campus, the biggest change goes back to the lifeblood of college sports: recruiting.
BYU needs to add a new caliber of recruit to compete in its new home, while also keeping tabs on the unique type of student that will forever be attracted to the school sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"There's no question that recruiting is totally different. I think our recruits understand that," Holmoe said. "I don't think there's a question that we lost recruits in the past because we weren't a member of a Power Five conference.
"Now that can't be the argument."
That's part of the upgrades to several coaching staffs, including a recently revealed addition to head coach Kalani Sitake's staff that Holmoe described as "unprecedented" when he extended the popular football coach and promised additional resources to his assistants and personnel staff.
"We had begun talks on that contract prior to the Big 12," Holmoe said. "But we also knew that to go into the Big 12 and to reach the goals that he and I have set for each other, there's going to be growth. I'm not throwing money at titles and numbers that other schools have. We have to do it the BYU way."
