"You're out fishing all the time, always asking," Hill said. "You're putting your line out there and seeing if you can get a bite."

Sometimes it helps to have a good friend in the business, which is how the Utes got Louisville on the schedule in 2007 and 2009.

Hill is friends with Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich, who was formerly the AD at Colorado State and Northern Arizona.

"I have a good relationship with Tom, and he likes to play us," Hill said.

The Utes have upcoming non-league games against UCLA, Oregon State, Washington State and Oregon, all teams from BCS conferences, over the next five years.

However, the Ute schedule is also dotted with teams such as Ohio of the Mid-American Conference, Nevada of the WAC and Weber State of the Big Sky.

Hill, who isn't a proponent of the new 12-game schedule, said that's the way it's likely to be in the future for Ute schedules.

Besides the eight league games, there will be four non-league games each season. Hill said he'd like to get at least two BCS teams every year, one home and one away, at a minimum and more if possible. However, the other two games may have to be against the likes of Weber State or Ohio because it is just too difficult to get big-name schools on the schedule.

"It's going to get harder and harder for us," he said. "Ideally we'd like to have six home games every year, but more and more schools are doing that, trying to get a sixth home game."

Ever since the NCAA changed a rule about wins over non-Division I-A schools counting toward bowl games, more big-name schools have been filling up their schedules with those schools rather than I-A schools. For instance, Texas Tech has already played Florida Atlantic, Sam Houston State and Indiana State this year after dropping I-A schools from their slate.

The Utes had to scramble for games after losing a two-for-one deal with Texas that was supposed to start in 2007. When TCU joined the Mountain West two years ago, Utah had to clear some space on their schedule and got out of the three-year deal.

However, it wasn't long after that when the NCAA approved the 12th game, meaning the games could have stayed on the schedule after all. But it was too late, so Utah came up with the Louisville games as well as Weber State in 2008.

While Hill has the final say on scheduling, he works with Whittingham to make sure the coach approves and to try to get a good balance when home and away games are played.

Utah prefers to have home-and-home pairings, but isn't averse to two-for-one deals like it had with Texas, if they are against top programs.

Hill also said the Utes could still do a "one-way game" like three years ago when the Utes went back to Michigan.