BYU football is now considered a Power 5 opponent — well, at least in the eyes of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
According to ESPN's Brett McMurphy, the ACC will now count scheduling BYU as fulfilling its conference requirement of playing a non-league Power 5 team.
"The reason for the change was because three of the four remaining Power 5 leagues (Big 12, Pac-12 and Big Ten) play nine conference games or will be going to nine conference games, meaning fewer nonconference opportunities," one source told McMurphy.
The report is a complete turnaround from when ACC commissioner John Swofford said last year that BYU would not count as a Power 5 team in the conference's scheduling standards. The SEC made a similar claim last season.
The Cougars have played Virginia, an ACC opponent, the past two seasons. The two schools have split that series so far and will close out its series against each other with games in 2019 and 2023.