‘Lesser of two evils’: BYU’s Tom Holmoe explains why Cougars are traveling to Wyoming this week

Just before BYU beat Wyoming 38-24 in Provo on Sept. 24, 2022, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe told the BYU Sports Radio Network that the Cougars fully intended to return the game in Laramie in 2024.

“It is a good game. … It is a game we should be playing,” Holmoe said at the time.

After BYU beat its former conference rival for the ninth straight time , and perhaps not knowing what Holmoe had promised four hours before that, then-Wyoming coach Craig Bohl said he believed BYU would buy its way out of the agreement.

That seemed odd, because Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman had told the Casper Star-Tribune earlier that week that he fully expected BYU to make the trip, despite the fact that the Cougars were joining the Big 12 in 2023 and were in the process of trimming their 2024 non-conference schedule from 12 games to three.

Turns out, Holmoe and Burman were right.

Wyoming (0-2) will host BYU (2-0) at 7 p.m. MDT Saturday night in Laramie, the Cougars’ first visit back to the high plains 7,220 feet above sea level and 30,000-seat War Memorial Stadium since 2009. Quarterback Max Hall led the Cougars to a 52-0 win that day, throwing for 312 yards and four touchdowns in just over two quarters.

It looks like a trap game if there ever was one, considering that Wyoming is 0-2 and coming off a 17-13 home loss to FCS Idaho and BYU is 2-0 and coming off an 18-15 road win at the ACC’s SMU. But BYU coach Kalani Sitake would have none of that talk earlier this summer.

“Wyoming is always good, and really physical, especially up there,” he said.

The Cougars return to LaVell Edwards Stadium the following week, hosting a Kansas State team expected to contend for the Big 12 title, in BYU’s conference opener. Wyoming is at North Texas on Sept. 21.

You will also hear a lot this week about how much this game means to the Cowboys and their fans, who have seen a few memorable wins over the hated Cougars the past 50 years, but also a lot of lopsided losses. BYU has won 12 of the last 13 and 18 of the last 20 matchups.

The last time Wyoming beat BYU in Laramie, 13-10 on Oct.18, 2003, Wyoming fans tore down the goalposts and paraded them through town, despite the fact that both teams had losing records.

So why is BYU, with so little to gain and so much to lose, even playing this game?

At the Big 12 football media days in July in Las Vegas, Holmoe told the Deseret News that “it is kind of the lesser of two evils.” He also said BYU was doing it “out of principle,” a reference to his 2022 promise, his friendship with Burman, and a thawed, warmer relationship with the neighboring state school after a lot of discontent stemming from the “Black 14″ incident in 1969.

“So when you have 12 independent games, and then you go into a league, you have to take nine of them, and put them out, to make room for nine conference games,” Holmoe said. “You just don’t throw them in the trash. You have contracts with those teams that you have to work through.”

Holmoe said he didn’t want to play back-to-back nonconference road games, but a Big 12 requirement that makes its teams play at least one nonconference Power Four foe per season meant that the series with SMU (signed in October of 2023) had to stay.

Then it was a question of whether to keep the Wyoming game, or buy it out for probably around $1 million and try to find a home game against an FBS team on short notice. He contacted his friend and college football scheduling guru Dave Brown of Gridiron to see if there were any options.

There were for Week 2 — SMU proved to be the best choice there, as the Mustangs were moving to the P4′s ACC — but nothing great for Week 3.

“It was in (2021) when we first knew we were going to the Big 12. And we told Dave (Brown) we were going to need a couple of games in 2024. Most people think there are (a lot) of games, but there aren’t,” Holmoe said. “At the time, we had three choices for each one of those slots, because you are not talking about the whole season; You are talking about Week 3, and Week 2.”

Also in July, Holmoe said the Cougars’ P4 nonconference opponent in 2025 would be announced “pretty soon,” but as of early September that hadn’t happened. BYU opens at home against FCS Southern Utah in 2025 and needs a Week 2 game against a P4 opponent before traveling to East Carolina in Week 3.

“Only two years to do college football scheduling is hard,” Holmoe said. “Take a team from the SEC, and look at their 2032 nonconference schedule, and it will be filled. So when you start thinking you can do it in two years, on that specific day, the choices are slim.”

So, bring on the Cowboys.

“We will just keep making statements as we go along,” Sitake told BYUtv after the SMU game. “We are ready for statement No. 3 to come next week and we are going to Laramie and playing a tough Wyoming team … in a hostile environment. It is a good experience for our guys, so we are looking forward to that game.”

Cougars on the air

BYU (2-0, 0-0) at Wyoming (0-2 ,0-0)

Saturday, 7 p.m. MDT

At War Memorial Stadium (capacity: 29,811)

Laramie, Wyoming

TV: CBS Sports Network

Radio: KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM