PROVO — BYU's football program has struggled with scheduling automatic-qualifying BCS opponents for its future schedules, but on Tuesday, the school struck gold — or burnt orange — announcing a 2011 matchup with the University of Texas.
The Cougars and Longhorns are set to meet on Sept. 10, 2011 at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas.
While the contract calls for only one game, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe is hopeful that there will be future games with Texas, which played in the BCS championship game earlier this month.
"Scheduling for this game in 2011 has really opened up communications with Texas that I hope will result in future games," said Holmoe. "That's my objective in getting this game — to be able to get two games with them. "We're not going to play one game on the road against a team that's an average team. (Texas) is a great team. There's a handful of teams in the country that we would do this with.""
Just like scheduling Oklahoma to start the recently completed 2009 season, getting a game with the Longhorns is a big deal, said Holmoe.
"The top teams in the country don't blink at all when they're scheduling. They can play anybody and they know it. I'm grateful that Texas is giving us the opportunity to play. They don't have to play us. But it fits into their schedule; it works for them and it works for us. There are a handful of teams in the country — Oklahoma and Texas are two of them — that don't care. They'll play anybody."
Holmoe added that most automatic-qualifying BCS teams "are really cautious, and we have a hard time scheduling (those schools)."
BYU and Texas are two of the winningest teams in college football over the last four seasons. The Cougars have posted a 43-9 record since the 2006 campaign and the Longhorns are 45-8 during that span under coach Mack Brown. Only three other teams — Ohio State, Boise State and Virginia Tech — boast double-digit win totals in each of the past four years.
"It's a great opportunity for BYU to play a program like the Longhorns on a national stage," said Holmoe. "We anticipate a great matchup between two storied programs that are currently among the most successful in the nation. I'm really excited for our coaches, our players and the rest of Cougar Nation."
BYU and Texas have met twice in history, with the Cougars winning both games. BYU beat the Longhorns, 22-17, in Austin in 1987, and the Cougars crushed Texas in 1988, 47-6, in Provo.
The Longhorns are the only team from an automatic-qualifying BCS conference that BYU has scheduled beyond 2010. The Cougars have scheduled only one other non-conference opponent for 2011 — Utah State. Last fall, Washington elected to exercise a buyout option and dropped BYU from its schedule in 2011 and 2012.
Holmoe is taking a cautious approach in filling those two remaining non-conference games in 2011.
"There are some discussions and some really interesting games. It gets complicated when you add Texas to the schedule," he said. "We had some discussions with other teams that were moving along slowly. When we got Texas, those are gone now for us. There are some games we're looking at that will complement this schedule. Now that we have Texas on the schedule, and we're contracted to play Utah State, we still need two more games for 2011."
In 2010, the Cougars' non-conference schedule features home games against Washington (Sept. 4) and Nevada (Sept. 25), and road games against Florida State (Sept. 18) and Utah State (Oct. 2). BYU's entire 2010 schedule is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
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