Brigham Young University is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, which originated in western New York in the early 1800s before heading west, pioneers in covered wagons journeying to Ohio, then Nebraska, then Utah.

The university in Provo was founded in 1875 by Young, then the church president, to provide “a good education unmixed with the pernicious atheistic influences that are found in so many of the higher schools of the country.”

An intrepid spirit, then, is baked into their DNA. Football independence, in that sense, makes sense.

The wagon train rolls into SDCCU Stadium on Saturday for BYU’s first regular-season game against San Diego State in a decade, since the Cougars were still a member of the Mountain West, two years before they struck out on their own into the wilds of football independence.


They’re the BYU of old, and they’re different.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” says Athletic Director Tom Holmoe, the man who orchestrated the move in 2011, “so it’s hard to say if it has been better or worse than we thought. It’s kind of been a grand adventure.”

And it’s not one that’s about to end anytime soon, as much as folks like SDSU coach Rocky Long — and some grumbling BYU fans — would like to see the Cougars return.

BYU signed an eight-year contract with an option for a ninth with ESPN to televise home games as an independent and annually send the Cougars to ESPN-owned bowls. ESPN picked up the option for 2019, and Holmoe says they have agreed in principle to another multiyear contract. The TV portion has been settled; they’re finalizing the bowl details.


Like the pioneers heading west, nothing is permanent. Holmoe says the ESPN contract contains an out clause should the Cougars land an invitation from a power conference, which they have already tried, and failed, with the Big 12.

The money has been better, no doubt, with estimates of $6 million-plus per year. That’s five times what SDSU receives annually from the Mountain West, and roughly double what Boise State gets in its side deal with ESPN that the Mountain West grudgingly allowed to keep the Broncos in the conference.

“The money is better but that’s not the reason we did it,” Holmoe says. “Our instructions from our administration was don’t do it for money. If you’re doing anything for money in college athletics, it’s going to bite you. Obviously you have to be financially solvent and you have to be wise in the investments you make, but the money doesn’t take you through.”

Their reasons: exposure and access.


Exposure with games on ESPN’s national networks (as opposed to, ahem, Facebook Live). And access for BYUtv, the school’s network available in 54 million homes that was restricted from airing many sports events as a member of the Mountain West, which at the time had its own, ill-fated network called The Mountain.

The cynical take: Rival Utah bolted for the Pac-12 in 2011, and BYU couldn’t stand the ignominy of being left behind in the Mountain West.

Whatever the true motive, the Cougars yanked the rip cord in football and parked sports like basketball in the West Coast Conference, a collection of faith-based universities (although significantly smaller than BYU’s 34,000 enrollment).

Has it worked? Has it created an existential crisis at The Y?


Depends whom you ask.

BYUtv has thrived, broadcasting 120 live sports events per year and helping grow the Cougar brand nationally. School officials say internal surveys indicate the majority of alums and fans favor independence. And the gloomy predictions about football scheduling never materialized.

The Cougars have scheduled everyone in the Pac-12 except Colorado, and everyone in the 12-team Mountain West except Colorado State, Air Force and New Mexico. The 2020 schedule has Michigan State and five other power conference opponents, plus Boise State, Houston and SDSU.

They’ll play USC and three other Pac-12s in 2021, Baylor and Oregon in 2022, Tennessee and Virginia in 2023.


The problem has been less scheduling games than winning them, and independence becomes a convenient scapegoat. The Cougars won 10 or more games in four of five seasons between 2006 and 2011, and haven’t since.

That includes a 2017 home loss against UMass en route to a 4-9 record, their worst in nearly a half-century and the end of an 11-year bowl streak.

“We’ve had some really good teams and some really good wins, and we’ve had some really tough losses,” Holmoe says. “There’s not a lot of forgiveness in an independent schedule when you lose games you shouldn’t lose.”

Even more painful: They haven’t defeated the Utes since they left for the Pac-12 and the Cougars went independent.


In 2018, Salt Lake Tribune columnist Gordon Monson called for a return to the Mountain West, writing: “Independence, and all its goals of glory, might have seemed a bridge too far back then. Now it, and they, seem a blown bridge too far, with little left lingering but the smoke of delusion.”

There are also questions of motivation and relevance as the weather cools and the season grinds into November, with your bowl game pre-determined and no conference championship at stake. Take 2019, which was front-loaded with power conference opponents because that’s when they can play. The Cougars opened with Utah, Tennessee, USC and Washington. Their last four games: Utah State, Liberty, Idaho State and UMass.

Head coach Kalani Sitake, a fullback at BYU in the 1990s who had spent his entire playing and coaching career at programs in a conference, was asked if he prefers the independent life after his team thwarted a last-minute drive to beat Liberty 31-24.

“Do you have a conference for us to go to?” Sitake replied. “This is what it is. We love our opportunity to play the game of football and play great teams. It’s what we have. I love that we have guys who are just ready to compete no matter what, who don’t worry about that stuff.


“This is more of an administration question. … If you can get me into a big-time conference or formulate one, let’s go.”

SDSU’s Long has a solution: Stop scheduling the Cougars.

He has made it known he didn’t schedule Saturday’s game or the return date next year in Provo. His administration did. John David Wicker had been athletic director for three months when the home-and-home series was announced in February 2017, but former AD Jim Sterk is believed to have been the driving force behind it.

Long’s parents both attended BYU, met there, got married there. He was born in Provo, although he’s not a practicing Mormon. He wants them back.


“I have nothing against BYU and I think they’d be a strong addition to our league,” Long says. “And the way to get them back is to not schedule them. Make them hunt and peck to find a schedule. I mean, half their schedule is Mountain West teams already.”

The Aztecs don’t have the Cougars on future schedules, but pretty much everyone else in the Mountain West does. Boise State is booked through 2034.

The stigma of football independence, meanwhile, seems to be changing. Since BYU left the Mountain West, three programs (UMass, New Mexico State and Liberty) have embarked on the grand adventure and a fourth (UConn) will next year. Add existing independents Army and Notre Dame, and that makes seven. An informal scheduling alliance helps fill empty dates in November.

Liberty, Jerry Falwell’s evangelical Christian university in Virginia with a $1.4 billion endowment, came to LaVell Edwards Stadium three weeks ago in its first season as a full-fledged member of the NCAA’s Football Bowl Championship. After the final whistle, both teams knelt at midfield for a group prayer.


Ian McCaw, Liberty’s athletic director, looked down on 54,683 watching a November game with no title implications and talked about how BYU served as inspiration for the Flames to apply for an NCAA waiver granting it Division I status without a conference affiliation in football. (Its other sports play in the Atlantic Sun.)

“We believe that independent football is sustainable for us long-term,” McCaw said. “If a conference opportunity came along, we’d listen. But we’re perfectly happy being independent for the foreseeable future.”

