The 2024 college football season is less than 100 days away. The expectations for BYU in 2024 are low – the oddsmakers have set the over/under for BYU's win total at just 4.5 wins. BYU’s challenging schedule is one of the primary reasons for the low expectations. BYU has one of the toughest conference schedules in the Big 12, and they also have a challenging nonconference slate.
BYU's nonconference schedule is unlike any other team in the conference – and not in a good way. More on that in a moment. Frankly, BYU did themselves no favors in the scheduling department. After hosting Southern Illinois in the season opener, BYU will travel to SMU and Wyoming for consecutive road games to wrap up the nonconference slate.
In 2024, BYU only has four conference road games. For context, the Big 12 plays nine conference games every year, so half of the teams will only play four conference road games this year.
Of the 8 teams that only play four conference road games in 2024, 5 out of 8 are taking the opportunity to play seven home games in 2024. Arizona, Texas Tech, UCF, Iowa State, and West Virginia will get to play seven home games this year.
The remaining three teams (BYU, Colorado, TCU) will play two nonconference road games, and therefore, will play six home games in 2024.
Colorado is traveling to rivals Colorado State and Nebraska. TCU is traveling to rival SMU and Stanford. The takeaway? Those two teams are only playing two nonconference road games because of their rivalry games.
BYU is the only team in the conference that has signed up for two road games in the nonconference that are not rivalry games. When getting to a bowl game is the goal in the second year in the Big 12, that’s not scheduling best practice as a Power Four team.
That will need to change in the future, and it looks like it will. BYU only has one nonconference road game against a G5 opponent: a 2025 game at East Carolina.
CASEY LUNDQUIST
Casey Lundquist is the publisher and lead editor of Cougs Daily. He has covered BYU athletics for the last four years. During that time, he has published over 2,000 stories that have reached more than three million people.
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