BYU doesn’t have a formal football scheduling agreement with the Pac-12, but it could be argued that one pretty much exists anyway.
Wednesday, independent BYU and the Pac-12’s Stanford announced a four-game extension to their football series that means the Cougars and Cardinal will now meet eight times between this year’s game on Nov. 28 in Stanford and 2035 in Provo — when current BYU coach Kalani Sitake will be 60 years old.
The teams have previously met twice, with Stanford winning 18-14 in Provo in 2003 and 37-10 in Stanford in 2004. Wednesday’s announcement means that four of the next five games in the series will be played at Stanford, which is near Palo Alto, California.
BYU is also scheduled to play Pac-12 schools Arizona State, Utah, Arizona, Washington State, USC and Oregon at least once between this upcoming season and 2022.
Last September, the Deseret News profiled Stanford signee Tanner McKee, a quarterback who is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil and is expected to join the program this summer upon his return.
Kickoff times and TV plans for the new games will be announced during the scheduled seasons, according to a BYU news release.
The four new games will be played on Nov. 28, 2026 and Nov. 25, 2028 in Stanford and Aug. 30, 2031 and Sept. 1, 2035 in Provo.
Along with this year’s game, games were already scheduled to be played on Nov. 26, 2022 in Stanford and Sept. 13, 2025 and Sept. 1, 2029 in Provo.
Like this year, the 2022, 2026 and 2028 games will be played on Thanksgiving weekends at Stanford Stadium.
BYU now has five opponents scheduled for the 2026 season: Sept. 12 vs. Arizona, Sept. 19 at Utah, Sept. 26 at Virginia Tech, Nov. 7 vs. Boise State and Nov. 28 at Stanford.
In 2028, the Cougars will play at Utah on Sept. 9, according to the game contract obtained by the Deseret News recently, and will host Boise State on Sept. 23.