Holmoe defends football schedule

PROVO — BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe called scheduling Northern Iowa an emergency stopgap measure to replace Nevada for the opener in the 2008 Cougar football schedule — not a route he'll take in future years.

Holmoe met informally with a group of beat reporters on Thursday at Legends Grill on BYU's campus to discuss scheduling issues.

Scheduling teams in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), like Northern Iowa in 2008 and Eastern Washington in 2007 were transitional situations BYU hopes to avoid in the future, said Holmoe.

Northern Iowa's final rankings by Sagarin (USA Today) were better than four MWC teams and six WAC programs. Holmoe estimated 41 of 64 BCS schools scheduled teams like Northern Iowa in 2007, including Michigan in the famed Appalachian State date.

"Bronco Mendenhall believes in playing a regional schedule, like we have next year with UCLA and Washington. He doesn't like going clear across the country to play a game — the Army game (2011 at West Point, N.Y.) is an exception because of tradition set by LaVell Edwards to play service academies."

The 2008 schedule that features Northern Iowa, Utah State, Washington and UCLA, is representative of a balanced schedule, something BYU will set its sights on in coming years (minus the Division I-AA team), said Holmoe.

"Bronco Mendenhall will play anybody in the country," said Holmoe. "But we have a responsibility to move this program forward. "It is irresponsible to overschedule."

To explain this, Holmoe said he would not load up the Cougars schedule like some tried to do in the past.

If BYU played LSU, it would not also schedule Ohio State and Michigan in the same year. But scheduling two BCS teams as part of the non-conference schedule would be prudent, said the athletic director.

The four-year pact with Boise State that begins in 2012 is something Holmoe worked on for some time. He acknowledged his friend, the athletic director at Boise State, kept prodding him, asking him if BYU was afraid to schedule the

Broncos. "We got it done and we look forward to the series. It's unusual to get four straight years without an interruption."

Other notes from the meeting: