PROVO — BYU will open the 2012 football season at home against Washington State on Sept. 1, as part of a home-and-home series between the two schools, BYU announced Friday.
The BYU Cougars will travel to Pullman, Wash., for a game against the Washington State Cougars at Martin Stadium in 2013.
"We're excited to finalize this series with Washington State," BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said in a statement. "It fits well with our philosophy of scheduling regional games with quality opponents. It also gives our fans in the Northwest another opportunity to see our football team play live."
The matchup will mark the return of newly hired WSU coach Mike Leach to Provo. Leach, the former Texas Tech coach, is a BYU graduate. Next September's BYU-WSU game will also be Leach's debut as Washington State's head coach.
BYU and Washington State have met three times in the past, including the first meeting in the 1981 Holiday Bowl where Jim McMahon led BYU to a 38-36 victory in his final game as a Cougar. In 1989, BYU lost to WSU, 46-41, and in 1990 BYU won, 50-36.
Additional details including broadcast plans, game times and ticket information will be released at a later date.
BYU's other opponents in 2012 are expected to be Georgia Tech, Weber State, Utah, Boise State, Hawaii, Utah State, Oregon State, Notre Dame, New Mexico State, San Jose State, and Idaho. Not all the dates for those games have been officially announced.
email: jeffc@desnews.com
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Jeff Call has been a sportswriter for the Deseret News since 1997. He is the BYU beat writer and has been covering Cougar sports since 1993, when he served as sports editor at the Daily Universe. Call has written several more ..
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@ Duckhunter | 4:37 p.m. Dec. 9, 2011
Highland, UT
3 of those "good opponents" are from the PAC 12. You know the conference you spend all of your time bashing.
Pretty hypocritical of you.
Typical
Well 'girlse'...
According to your criteria that top notch competition is only to be found in BCS teams you should be jumping for joy that BYU's schedule for 2012 has risen exponentially by adding another BCS team.
The More..
54-10
Having a bad day are we?
Duckhunter's comment said absolutely nothing derogatory about your conference.
I on the other hand will. It ain't what its cracked up to be. Except for Oregon, Stanford and USC the rest More..