USF adds BYU and Texas to future football schedules

By Brian Wilmer -

ESPN’s Brett McMurphy reports that USF will be playing Texas and BYU as part of their future football schedules.

“BYU has a tremendous tradition in college football and we are excited to have the Cougars visit Raymond James Stadium and for our fans to have the opportunity to see the Bulls play in Provo,” said USF Director of Athletics Mark Harlan in the release announcing the games. “Clearly, we are committed to building very competitive non-conference schedules for our football program. BYU is a great addition to the many challenging opponents we have previously announced.”

The Texas series will be a two-for-one. USF will play at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin in 2019 and 2024. Texas will visit Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium in the 2022 season.

BYU and USF will play a home-and-home series with the first game at Raymond James Stadium on September 25, 2021. The Bulls will then travel to Provo’s LaVell Edwards Stadium on September 23, 2022.

USF has never faced either school on the gridiron.

Football Schedules

Comments (32)

Any update as to a possible Florida-Texas series for 2019-2020.

BYU is scheduling outwards. Wondering why ND is nor getting BYU onto their schedule as promised. Have the matchups for the five ND-ACC games per season been decided upon for 2017 and onward?

Completing the ND – ACC games has a lot of considerations.

COPIED FROM ARTICLE-

Among the litany of factors that Strickland and his counterparts at Notre Dame (athletic director Jack Swarbrick, senior associate AD John Heisler and associate AD Chad Klunder) are having to take into consideration:

– Notre Dame’s contracted games with Stanford and USC, which means also dealing with the Pac-12’s scheduling model, and Navy.

– Schedule balance for Notre Dame. As Strickland put it, “You wouldn’t want, nor would they ever agree to it, where they have to play Southern Cal, Florida State, Clemson and Miami four in a row.”

– The four built-in rivalry games for Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Louisville, as those teams’ preference, Strickland said, would be to avoid playing their rivalry game and the Notre Dame both on the road in the same year.

– NBC’s fall sports lineup. When NBC carries events like the Ryder Cup and the Breeders’ Cup on autumn Saturdays, Notre Dame can’t play at home, as the network is contracted to carry all Notre Dame home games.

– The schedules for all 14 ACC teams. It can be presumed, for instance, that Tech would prefer to not play Notre Dame the week before it plays Georgia.

The BYU delay is b/c since BYU is independent they have the most flexibility to dates compared to ND’s other annual games with Stanford, USC, Navy(joining AAC) and the series ND has with other teams in conferences like OSU, GA, etc.. ND is fully booked thru 2017 with games and dates so any BYU games will be after that and will probably with back to back years home/home with a 3 or 4 yr gap and then home/home back to back.

schoup, the only problem with your statement is that NBC isn’t contractually obligated to air all the Notre Dame home games. The most recent contract renewal actually makes it where select Notre Dame home games will air on NBCSN, I think beginning either next year or in 2016.

It should be interesting to see how the USF/Texas series is used as far as scheduling by the Texas athletic department. Before DeLoss Dodds left, his regime had begun scheduling by a pretty clear pattern: a “marquee match-up”, a second power-5 level team (including BYU in that category), and a team from one of the other 5 conferences.

If Patterson and company follow that pattern, this should technically be the 3rd category game for those years… but the only officially announced football scheduling that has happened since Patterson took over are the Michigan series, the cancellation of games 3 and 4 in the Notre Dame series, and this USF series… not much to go on yet.

Still, Patterson doesn’t seem like one to try to lighten the schedules, if some of his proposals and if some of the announcements for future basketball scheduling are any indication. Seems like he wants to keep UT in the spotlight.

Seems likely that, based on how the Michigan and USF series are spread out, there should be other series being scheduled at the moment and more announcements to come…?

@bigdn11

There is not a chance NBC will put a ND home fball game on NBCSN a channel that a lot of people don’t get. NBC is paying thru the nose for ND b/c it’s there only link to CFB, NBC not only wants 7 ND games a year, but they have been pushing and getting more ND home night games. The increase in ND home night games is not a coincidence compared to their past history. The stuff on NBCSN are the stuff from ND’s other sports. They show a boat load of ND hockey for example.

Well you obviously don’t understand TV. This would be one of the ways that NBC could raise the carriage fee for cable companies to pick-up NBCSN but also force the hand of companies that don’t offer it now to offer it in the future. You put a few games on NBCSN to build the brand and get more money from each individual household whether they want the channel or not. It’s what Fox tried to do with FS1 but the companies didn’t bite right away, because they didn’t have enough steam going into contract negotiations. Having ND in their back pocket is one large negotiation chip for NBC.

I’m afraid you are mistaken.

Here’s the original announcement link about the extension beginning in 2016: http://irish.nbcsports.com/2013/04/09/report-florida-state-to-host-notre-dame-in-14/#

And here’s the exact quote from that release.
“The contract extension begins in the 2016 season, and gives NBC the rights to a minimum of seven home football games a season. The agreement also allows for NBC Sports Digital to live stream Fighting Irish home games, and select games to air on NBC Sports Network.”

The contract is specifically for football and only football. Notre Dame hockey on NBCSN is a completely separate contract. Next time do your research.

@bigddn11

A live stream is supplement to a broadcast network. They run different camera angles which you can control or focus on a player. There is not a chance in hell NBC would put a ND game on NBCSN and not NBC broadcast. There is a reason they haven’t and wont’…. NBC sport frankly sucks, they lost NFL years ago, lost PGA after this year, have no college basketball, NBA, etc…They pay thru the nose for ND b/c that’s all they have besides the Olympics every 2 years that is of any note sports wise.

Indeed it is subjective and varies across seasons (thus much unpredictability in scheduling) but I wouldn’t consider USF third tier. More like second tier. There are exceptions, but for me second tier would be the bottom third of P5 conferences, and upper half of MWC and AAC and a few others including BYU and NIU. Third tier would most definitely be the bottom half of group of five conferences and FCS.

For example, this season I would consider lower tier AAC to be UConn, Tulsa, Tulane, SMU, In a few recent seasons UConn could be considered second tier,

Most programs playing a nine game conference schedule appear to attempt the following OOC schedule format. One first tier, one second tier and one third tier. Exceptions apply (e.g. Texas and often Stanford, USC and UCLA).

But some P5 programs go out of their way to avoid scheduling P5 OOC opponents. See Baylor. After this season Oklahoma St, Kansas St and Kansas OOC schedules are also weak, not scheduling a Power Five program. And Wash, Wash St, Arizona, Utah and Colorado have some weak schedules, rather often scheduling second tier BYU as their top OOC opponent. And some B1G schedules are weak as well. But tht will change when every B1G program schedules at least one P5 OOC opponent. The B12 and P12 so far are not guided by such conference mandates.

The deal with the ACC and SEC 4-game OOC schedules is those programs get to add at least one extra cupcake to their OOC schedules than the other three P5 conferences. And those cupcakes generally come from the SunBelt and CUSA.

Besides Texas, USC, UCLA, and most often Stanford, (and soon all the B1G programs), most of the other P5 programs consistently schedule a FCS opponent. So those programs adding a third tier cupcake to a schedule, which already contains a FCS opponent, weakens the programs SOS and playoff committee must take this into account. And remember some FCS conferences/programs are much stronger than others. So the SOS for the P5 programs scheduling ‘extra weak’ FCS programs will be summarily impacted.

In this regard the B1G is being proactive. So far only three B1G programs have scheduled FCS opponents in 2017, two in 2018 and down to one in 2019 and 2020.

I understand your point. I’m just basing my question about Texas scheduling mostly on other Texas scheduling. A few years ago (actually even before conference realignment) a clear effort was made to beef up Texas’ schedules. It didn’t all kick in immediately… there were series to play out from prior scheduling practices and it can be hard to find the perfect teams really close to when the games would be played… but overall the pattern became:

– No FCS teams. There was one ever scheduled in 2006 and it didn’t go over well with fans… and there was a promise to avoid that by the AD.

– One marquee match-up: This evolved to being truly the top tier names in college football, even though in a few of the first years you could argue whether a team or two are as “big name” as others: UCLA (2011), @ Mississippi (2012), Mississippi (2013), vs UCLA (2014), @ Notre Dame (2015), Notre Dame (2016), @ USC (2017), USC (2018), and this pattern seems to be continued with @ Arkansas (2021… maybe not that marquee these days, but an old SWC rival and it’s the tail end of a series started a whiiile back that just needs to be played), the Ohio State Series, and the Michigan series. I think that, whatever our thoughts are on USF, we can all agree that they probably wouldn’t fit this category.

– One other BCS/Power 5 level program: BYU (2011), Wyoming? (2012… scheduling still had this one on the books to play), @ BYU (2013), BYU (2014), California (2015), @ California (2016), Maryland (2017), @ Maryland (2018). It’s tough to say if USF fits this category. It seems like Texas basically had a 2-for-1 deal with BYU (even if it was announced as a solo game and a home/home) so the USF series being 2-for-1 doesn’t eliminate them from this category. And a few years ago it seemed like USF was headed towards possibly making it to BCS games in the Big East, but they’ve clearly dropped off quite a bit since Jim Leavett got the boot for violent behavior. It remains one of the large Florida schools that could blow up and have a great season at any moment… but how does the UT athletic department rate them right now? A great chance to play in Florida in front of recruits, certainly… and 2-for-1 games help tremendously with scheduling, but… are they this category or…

– A third game against a team from (what now works out to be) the “gang of 5” conferences: Rice (2011), New Mexico (2012), New Mexico State (2013), North Texas (2014), Rice (2015), UTEP (2016), and UCF (2017). Now, the Rice games and the UTEP and UCF games are all the last part of 2-for-1 series that started a whiiiile back. The NM, NMSU, and UNT games are all 1-off games (though none of them are strangers to being 1-off games for Texas). Granted, UCF scheduled Texas to pack the house for the opening of their new stadium so this was well before they made the move up the conference ladder to the AAC and before they had their BCS Bowl season, but they were clearly considered to be this third category when the third game was placed into the same season with USC and Maryland. USF definitely shares characteristics with at least a few of these teams, as well as at least a few of the previous category teams.

So basically, I’m just wondering… in 2024 (chosen because it has two slots filled already), are we more likely to see Texas play @ Michigan, USF, and…. someone like North Texas, UTSA, Texas State, UNLV, Temple, Tulane, etc.? … or @ Michigan, USF, and someone like Syracuse, Duke, NC State, Pitt, Oregon State, Colorado, Utah, Kentucky, Vandy, etc?

Who knows what the answer will be. New AD. May have completely different ideas about this…

Why is Washington dumbing down their schedule so much? Hawaii, Georgia State, Eastern Washington this year, with the marquee game a real pansy in Illinois. 2015 sees a weakened Boise St one the road and home games with( ugh) Sacramento St. and Utah St. Idaho and Montana twice after that along with North Dakota , Portland State and the big..drum roll game…with Rutgers (oh boy). No decent home game until 2020 with, hopefully a Michigan team that will recover. They canceled a home & home with Wisconsin and we get BYU substituted in 2018 & 2019-good for BYU-not a marquee opponent for Washington.

How does the Washington AD put lipstick on so many pigs?

Washington has not historically dominated BYU over nine meetings, it has been a competitive series.

I’ll give you the exact numbers. Out of 9 meetings Washington leads the series with BYU 5-4. Before defeating BYU in the 2013 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, BYU had win 3 straight from Washington to even the series at 4 a piece (1999, 2008, 2010). As for it being a competitve series, 5 of the games have been decided by 12 points or less (1996, 1998, 1999, 2008, 2010) while 3 have been blowouts of 20 plus (1985, 1986, 1997). The last meeting was only a 15 point game and kind of falls in the middle ground.

This comment is not a knock on BYU, but rather a comment that BYU has historically been considered the marquee non league game for Washington. It certainly is now in comparison to all of the Montana, North Dakota, Sacramento St., Idaho and Portland State games.. In 2009, before Pac12 expanison Washington played BYU, Notre Dame and both USC and UCLA-now we get, Georgia State, Hawaii, Eastern Washington, Illinois and Colorado. That is certainly a dumbdown if nothing else.

Dave I think you meant that BYU has not been considered the marquee game but rather a second tier-and a good one at that. Just think in 2001, Washington had Miami (Fl) when they were top 3 and Michigan, in 1986 it was BYU and Ohio State in back to back home games, Now we pay Chris Petersen $3.7 million to play no names and FCS schools and we paid Don James $150k for a schedule twice as hard. Oregon has home & homes for the next 8 years with Michigan State, Nebraska, Texas A & M and Ohio State. Washington gets Illinois, 2015 2 MWC teams and Sacramento St. and then Rutgers in 2016 & 2017 along with Montana , North Dakota, Portland St and Idaho-not until 2020 when Michigan comes to Seattle is there a name non league game scheduled. How times have changed for the worse!

If everything remains pretty much the same I expect Texas will schedule a guarantee home game with Group of Five third tier opponent for the Horns third OOC game in 2024, (in addition to Mich and USF).

As far as Texas OOC scheduling goes, numerous recent factors have impacted Texas scheduling including the B12 going to a 9-game round-robin conference schedule therefore reducing the number of OOC games from 4 to 3, losing TAM/Mizzo/Colo from the Big12 while gaining WV, and no B12 championship game

So making a direct and fair comparison between past and current scheduling practices is impossible. But it is clear that since the Big12 went to a 9-game conference schedule (after 2010 season), the Longhorns have been fairly consistent aiming for a balanced OOC schedule (one tier1, one tier2, one tier3).

Every season Texas play four conf games at home, four conf games on the road and the Red River shootout/showdown with Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl (which before the Big12 was a non-conference game).

And Texas consistently plays two OOC games at home and one on the road. One of the games is part of a home-and-home series with a P5 tier 1 program, and the second game most often with a lower division P5 opponent or a tier two program (often in a 2-for-1 series). The third game is a ‘guarantee’ game with a regional program from CUSA/SunBelt.

For recruiting purposes it is evident Texas likes to schedule Florida and California programs and/or willing to play occasional ‘neutral field’ game.

2017 appears to be a robust OOC schedule considering UCF considered a top tier 2 program. 2012 was bit of an anomaly scheduling two MWC programs both of which might be considered as top tier 3.

But overall Texas scheduling has been consistently balanced and don’t expect that to change.

With the new CFB playoff format maintaining a balanced schedule is key while at the same time maintaining flexibility to schedule a sixth game at home every season (not including the RR shootout).

Future scheduling practices will adjust depending on how SOS impacts the playoff committee choices, if the playoff goes to 8-teams, the desires of and the money offered by Disney and the other TV networks, if NCAA/CFB allows an additional game to be added to the schedule, etc

Certainly not going to see a return of the Texas size super-strong OOC schedules of the Southwest Conference days.

Alabama still needs 2 games for 2015. 1 will be filled by a FCS school in November, the other game will be potentially another FCS school. It won’t be a P5 b/c Bama never plays 2 P5’s and everyone is already booked. At this point most group of 5 schools are booked with 12 games not to mention getting dates to line up.

The Mississippi State- NW State game wasn’t listed on Fbschedules.com so I assumed you were waiting for some other confirmation?

I cannot see that tweet in the re-posters Twitter timeline. And I can locate no other reference to that game, including on Missi State websites including HailState or any other Missi St sports/fan blogs or the NW State athletic website.

So no other announce besdies this one individual tweet?

So a copy of a fan re-tweet from a SI fan site (a tweet which could have been faked, generated by someone else and copied and pasted from anywhere) is all you need for a confirm?

So it appears you have confirmed that tweet to come from the Missi St AD office and the Twitter account was not punked/spammed?

Never saw that article until you linked it. The tweet was from the Mississippi State A.D. in response to questions from fans. Reached out to the school for a date.

“So it appears you have confirmed that tweet to come from the Missi St AD office and the Twitter account was not punked/spammed?”

Had his account been punked/spammed, they would have deleted the tweet. It’s over a month old now.

So I see this morning “TBA – Northwestern State” is listed for Missi St 2015 schedule. So I assume you have reconfirmed the game directly with Missi St AD office?

And have to say Missi State should be penalized for the ugly OOC schedule this season and next. Howevefr Missi State won’t be able to do the same in 2016, as the new SEC rule kicks in requiring all SEC programs to schedule a P5 OOC opponent.

BC and WV are the only two P5 programs yet without a P5 OOC opponent scheduled for 2016 (MSU already has Arizona and Kansas St scheduled for future home-and-home’s).

So Miss St may need to motivate a P5 opponent still with a 2016 opening to play two P5 OOC opponents such as Cal, Tex Tech or an ACC program (NC, WF, Louisville, Miami-FL, Syracuse)?

Miss St wants a home game but will probably have to do it on the road.

I don’t disagree with you about Alabama schedule but when you say “Bama never plays 2 P5’s” you are mistaken. 2010 they played Penn St & Duke, of course Duke being Duke at the time one may say, “well it was Duke” but they do belong to the P5.

@Frustrated Husky…you have the right to be frustrated fan. UW is not getting near the non-conference schedule quality as in the past with recent home-and-homes with LSU, Nebraska, ND, Ohio St and Oklahoma.

But that’s what not consistently winning does. The top P5 programs from the midwest, south and east coast do not desire to schedule home-and-homes with a non top west coast program. A road loss to a middle of the road Washington program has too much risk. Look what happened to USC risking visiting BC. Most top P5 programs are avoiding scheduling home-and-home series with distant non-top P5 opponents.

The Wolverines could right their boat by 2020 but Michigan’s program is sinking right now so that series does not have as it could have.

With the Hawaii exception this season the Huskies could have had a more attractive non-conference schedule if Washington offered to play another game on the road rather than focusing on having seven home games. But the AD chooses not go that route and wants seven home games every season.

Win a few more conference games a season (as well as the games against BYU and Boise St) then the Huskies will become a more attractive opponent and once again get consistent home and home series dates with top tier P5 opponents.

But continue to expect: 1. an annual guarantee home game to be scheduled with a Big Sky/FCS program.; 2. a home game with upper tier3 or lower tier2 program to ensure six or seven home games each season.

That explains why there are 5-10,000 extra empty tickets at those ( Georgia State) games and probably 18,000 empty seats vs. announced tickets distributed. As a long time season ticket holder I will be reconsidering renewing if the schedule stays putrid for as long it you indicate..

Day, that was in the past.

Coach Saban and the Alabama AD have repeatedly stated that for the indefinite future Alabama will only play a single power program once a season and the game will be at a southern neutral site. No more home and homes. The repeated script from the AD says its all about recruiting and that fans don’t mind all the non competitive powder puff cupcake games at home.

So that is why Alabama is having a very difficult time scheduling. What did they think would happen?

I also believe it has a lot to do with financial impact when it comes to neutral site games. Bama brought home 4.7 million for playing against Michigan, 2.5 against Va.tech, 3.2 for the West Virginia game & 4 million for the Wisconsin game next year & I heard that Michigan vs Florida game both teams will make 6 million a piece in 2017. In some ways it is cheaper to play a neutral site game then a home/n/home. Neutral site games are getting bigger & a lot of teams are doing it, not just Alabama even though Bama has been in most. The BIG TEN is considering staring some neutral site games in NEW YORK & Washington. It is not easy scheduling good opponents for home/n/home series. Also every school from the P5 plays a couple of “competitive powder puff cupcake games at home”. I’m not disagreeing with you at all but there are good & “of course” bad with neutral site games or home/n/home series games as well.

Certainly no disrespect intended, but no matter how competitive the games may have been, BYU has NEVER been the “marquee” opponent for Washington.

As an independent BYU continues to successfully schedule many Pac12 and P5 programs. But until BYU has a consistently strong schedule as Notre Dame, BYU will never receive (earn) the respect to be considered a power program. Indeed it’s a which came first, the chicken or the egg type of conundrum. Best bet for BYU is to find a way to get into the Big12.

2011: @OS* / Utah* / @TCU (neu) / @Missi% / @Tex#
2012: @Utah* / OS* / ND* / @GT*
2013; Utah* / @Wisc# / @ND* / GT* / Texas# / @Virg*
2014: @Cal* / @Texas# / Virg*
2015: @UCLA* / @Nebr% / @Mich%
2016: UCLA* / Arizona (Glendale)# / @Utah* / @WV (Md)
2017: Utah* / Cal* /
2018: @Wash* / @Arizona# / @Utah* / @Wisc#
2019: USC# / Wash* / @WSU / Utah* ??? / Wisc# / @Virg*
2020: @Stan* / @ASU* / Arizona# / @Utah* / Virg*
2021: @USC# / ASU* / Utah* /
2022: @Stan* /
2023: @USC# / Stan* /
2023: Stan* /

And BYU is awaiting to hear back from ND.

—–
UW Huskies Schedules

2015 Boise St# / Utah St$ / Sac St$
2014 Ill* / @Haw* / Geo St$ / EWU$
2013 @Ill* (neu Soldier Field) / Boise St# / Idaho St$

2012 @LSU* / SD St$ / Port St$
2011 @Nebr* / Haw* / EWU$

Pac-10 to Pac-12

2010 Nebr* / Syr* / @BYU*
2009 LSU* / @ND* / Idaho$
2008 OK* / ND* / BYU*
2007 Ohio St* / @Syr* / Boise St#
2006 @OK* / Fresno St$ / SJ St$
2005 ND* / AF$ / Idaho$
2004 @ND* / Fresno St / SJ St$
2003 @Ohio St* / Indiana# / Nevada$ / Idaho$
2002 @Mich* / Wyo$ / SJ St$ / Idaho$
2001 @Miami-FL# / Mich* / Idaho$

2000 Miami-FL# / @Colo* / Idaho$
1999 Colo* / @BYU# / AF$
1998 @Nebr* / BYU# / Utah St$
1997 Nebr* / @BYU# / San Diego St$
1996 @ND* / BYU# / SJ St$
1995 @Ohio St* / ND* / Army$
1994 Ohio St* / @Miami-FL# / SJ St$
1993 @Ohio St* / ECU$ / SJ St$
1992 Nebr* / Wisc* / Pacific$
1991 @Nebr* / Kansas St% / Toledo
1990 @Colo* / @Purdue* / SJ St$
1989 TAM* / Purdue* / Colo*
1988 @Purdue* / Army$ / SJ St$
1987 @TAM / Purdue* / Pacific$
1986 Ohio St* / BYU# / BG$
1985 OK St* / @Houston* / @BYU*
1984 @Mich* / NW# / Houston* / Miami-OH$
1983 @LSU* / Mich* / @NW# / Navy$
1982 TT* / UTEP$ / San Diego St$
1981 @TT* / Kansas St% / Pacific$
1980 @OK St* / NW# / Navy$ / AF$
1979 Pitt* / Utah% / Wyo$ / Fresno St$
1978 Alabama* / @Indiana# / Kansas%

Pac-8 to Pac-10

@day “I also believe it has a lot to do with financial impact when it comes to neutral site games.”

I’d like to see the spreadsheet for neutral games versus home games.

TV money and sponsorship connections are funding the so-called “neutral field” games. But the explosion in the number of these games is destroying the nature of college football. The power programs with many pro stadiums in their region will have advantage over those do not. On campus college football creates extra excitement and is good for the campus communities. Whereas so many neutral games pull all the game day excitement and money out of the campus community. And neutral games negatively impact the finances and reinvestment into campus area stadiums campus, especially those which are publicly financed.

If fans care about college football and their campus community they should support home-and-home series and demand their team avoid playing neutral games as much as possible.