As the Big 12 Conference rolled out its 2026 football schedule Wednesday morning, there was a bit of an interesting scheduling detail for BYU.
The Cougars are typically given a Thursday/Friday night game or bye week during the first weekend of October, so as not to interfere with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ semiannual general conference services, which are held on October’s first Saturday and Sunday.
In the upcoming football season, however, BYU will head to Fort Worth, Texas, to face TCU on Saturday, Oct. 3 — the first day of general conference.
The Cougars have not played on the same day as general conference since 2005 — Bronco Mendenhall’s first season at the helm of the program — when BYU fell 31-10 at San Diego State in a contest that kicked off following the conclusion of that day’s evening session.
This past November, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a change to the longstanding general conference format, with the Saturday evening session of conference being discontinued in an effort to better emphasize the earlier sessions.
With the discontinuation of the Saturday evening session, a window now opens for BYU to play later on that first Saturday of October without conflicting with general conference.
However, the start time for this year’s general conference Saturday matchup at TCU has yet to be announced (the television networks determine the start times for games), so there is still a chance the Cougars will be assigned to play during a session of conference that day.
Additionally, BYU did indicate that “select Saturday games may be adjusted to select Fridays, other special dates, and Black Friday, with game announcements in the coming weeks,” which could potentially affect the TCU game.
In the two decades since last playing on the same day as general conference, BYU has played on the Thursday or Friday before conference 17 times (2006, 2008-18, 2020-23, 2025) and had a bye week before conference three times (2007, 2019, 2024).
