Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PROVO — The old (old, old) Western Athletic Conference is getting the band back together.
For the first time since 1978, BYU will play in the same conference as Arizona, Arizona State and Utah after the trio were voted unanimously into the now-16 member Big 12 on Friday evening.
The move reunites the so-called Four Corner schools with Colorado, a founding member of the Big 12 that opted to rejoin the league last week. It also leaves the current Pac-12 with just four members — California, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State — ahead of the 2024-25 season.
For BYU, the move to the Big 12 has been a long-time coming. So, too, has been the move to reunite with their Mountain time zone (at least for part of the calendar) counterparts into a western front of the Big 12.
"We are excited to now welcome Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12, in addition to Colorado," BYU president Shane Reese said in a statement. "Having 16 member institutions will be a great strength to the conference moving forward."
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe echoed his first-year university president.
"I'm grateful to Big 12 leadership for seeing this through," he said. "The conference keeps getting stronger, and we are thankful to add more Big 12 rivals in closer proximity."
— BYU Cougars (@BYUCougars) August 5, 2023
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark voiced his approval for the three new schools Friday.
"We are thrilled to welcome Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12," said Yormark, who is beginning his second year leading the conference. "The conference is gaining three premier institutions both academically and athletically, and the entire Big 12 looks forward to working alongside their presidents, athletic directors, student-athletes and administrators."
The four schools were founding members of the WAC along with New Mexico and Wyoming, from 1962 through 1978, when the two Arizona schools joined what was then the Pac-8 Conference to become the Pac-10.
The league first expanded in 1968 to add Colorado State and UTEP, and ballooned as large as 16 members with the additions of Hawaii, Fresno State, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Air Force, Tulsa, TCU, SMU and Rice in the 90s.
But the league became unwieldy in its move across multiple time zones, sparking a coalition led by BYU, Utah, Air Force, Wyoming and Colorado State to break away and form the Mountain West Conference in 1999.
Despite the shared history, BYU football is just 11-12-1 all-time against Arizona, a series that dates back to 1936, per BYU athletics.
The Cougars own a similar history with Arizona State — a 7-20 overall record since 1935 that includes a current three-game winning streak dating back to 1997 following BYU's 27-17 win in Provo in 2021.
Then there are the in-state rival Utes, who remain BYU's longest and most-played rivalry in program history. The series dates back to 1922 — according to the Cougars, though Utah disputes the numbers. Utah believes the program leads the overall series 62-35-4, while BYU argues that the series is actually just 59-32-4 in the once-dubbed "Holy War" rivalry.
It's likely due to the Utes counting a series of games when the Cougars were called Brigham Young Academy, arguing that the first game was played in 1896.
The two teams split six meetings from 1896 to 1898.
Regardless of the origin, the rivalry series is back on — in 2024, when the two teams were already set to resume a brief hiatus with the first of five-consecutive scheduled contests Sept. 7 at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Now those games will count in the conference standings.
