Among the biggest drawbacks about BYU going independent has always been that the Cougars would struggle to schedule games in October and November. That's still the case. The Pac-12 doesn't want its teams playing non-conference games after the first three weeks of the season, and other conferences are reportedly looking into following suit.

But after BYU had its media day on Tuesday, it seemed the Cougars can still work this out for a few years. Why? They had an ESPN executive saying so.

I'm still not convinced BYU wants to stay independent forever. Athletics director Tom Holmoe said he has spent more time in the last year putting together schedules than he did in the previous several combined. But Dave Brown, ESPN's vice president of programming and acquisition, sounded an interesting note on Tuesday when he said, "Moving forward, (scheduling) is something I'm not worried about at all" with BYU.

ESPN has enough power to convince teams to redo their schedules, even in November, and perhaps even to have conferences make exceptions. After all, the Pac-12 allows USC and Stanford to play Notre Dame in the late season.

WORKING IT OUT While I doubt BYU will have a lot of great games in November, there are some options. If other conferences do stop allowing late non-conference games, that means Navy, Notre Dame and Army could have scheduling problems, too. Down the road, that might necessitate them all playing one another late in the year.

I'm doubting the WAC, Conference USA, the Sun Belt or the Mountain West will ever demand their teams play conference-only games in the late season, anyway. Not when they have the chance to play on ESPN. So at worst, BYU's late-season schedule will look like this year: Idaho, New Mexico State and Hawaii.

The sailing might be a little choppy, but the boat isn't taking on water.

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