BYU - UMASS series announcement pending?

FBSchedules.com @FBSchedules UMass expected to announce home-and-home football series with #BYU and #Army soon, per @GazetteUMass

UMASS could be a softer game in the future schedule. The reports on twitter say they scheduled an announcement for Wednesday (9/24) at noon which was believed to be an announcement about future games maybe in 2016-17.



Taking a look at schedules shows:

2015 - Not likely for this year - BYU has 6 Home and 6 Away games (assuming @ Southern Miss moves out of 2015). UMASS has 2 Home and 2 Away OOC games already.

2016 - Not likely for this year - BYU has 3 Home and 5 Away games. But UMASS has 2 Home and 3 Away OOC games already.

2017 - Not likely for this year - BYU has 4 Home and 4 Away games. But UMASS has 1 Home and 4 Away OOC games already.

2018 - Potential target - BYU has 3 Home and 5 Away games. UMASS has 0 Home and 2 Away OOC games.

2019 - Potential target - BYU has 2 Home and 4 Away games. UMASS has 0 Home and 0 Away OOC games.

2020+ - Potential target - The only game UMASS has scheduled is @ Colorado in 2021. BYU also has plenty of openings this far out.

I believe UMASS is going to try and go independent for awhile.



It's a great game just for the opportunity to go to the Boston area for the players. Boston is seriously the best big city in the US.

Currently not a very good program. Very new. Maybe they will improve by the time we play. Hopefully we get some bigger name games. There is a rumor from TH's twitter that we are close to announcing a series with a big name school. Still waiting to hear the news.

You are right--I forgot about them leaving the MAC after the 2015 season.

http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston-college-football-2014/2014/3/26/5550648/umass-football-leaving-mac" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



So that makes 2016-17 a real possibility. UMASS wants to join the AAC as football only, but would not be very competitive and hurt the conference SOS (UMASS went 1-11 twice since moving up to FBS status and are 0-3 so far this year). They are leaving the MAC because the MAC exercised their clause to require UMASS join for all sports or leave the conference and UMASS is not pulling basketball from the Atlantic-10. The other conferences aren't a good fit geographically and they don't want to have to fall back to FCS status so maybe they spend some time as an independent.



Hopefully this would take the place of a FCS game on our schedule. And I guess the bye week would be a good time to announce something.

I would like it replacing a FCS game but it would require a 2 for 1 or 1 and done.

stuckinbig10country wrote:
I believe UMASS is going to try and go independent for awhile.



It's a great game just for the opportunity to go to the Boston area for the players. Boston is seriously the best big city in the US.

Agreed. If this was announced, I would definitely try to make it to the game just to visit Boston again. Incredible area and history.

scott715 wrote:
I would like it replacing a FCS game but it would require a 2 for 1 or 1 and done.

Many fans do not get this connection. Every time BYU gives Michigan or someone else a 2 for 1, BYU needs to find a team desperate enough to give us a 2 for 1 to offset or we will not have 6 home games.



In reality, we should play 7 home games like the big boys plus alternate U and USU so that we only leave the state 4 times, and play those games that leave the state somewhere between Denver and the West coast.



The west coast has the sunshine and the girls all get so tan

I wish they all could be California Girls......

Beach Boys



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UMASS? Upside here?



Sure Boston is a fun city, but just go on vacation there. No real upside, long distance for the team to travel, no a recruiting hot bed, no upside in SOS for playing UMASS, I don't see an economic angle to it. Not sure I get it unless we are desperate to fill the schedule. If we are headed east get a bigger name: BC, Rutgers, Syracuse, Cincy etc.



If we need a "filler" why not a filler closer to home or in a recruiting hot bed (UNT or a So. Cal school).

UMass would be a great schedule addition for November. Way better than an FCS opponant, we can move forward with a number of scheduled games in a row, and develop a good relationship with them. Also, they may be like some of the WCC scools and allow us to broadcast our game at their place on BYUtv. The weather difference isn't too bad. This could be a real good move

I think indys helping each other out with scheduling is not a bad thing in my opinion. You do need to look out for your program but swapping a UMASS series with someone like a UNLV periodically wouldn't do any harm as far as I can tell. It would help with the national exposure and potentially be a game that gets seen by people (recruits and/or media) that normally don't get to see BYU as much.

#UMass, #BYU schedule 4-game home-and-home football series. 2016-17 in Provo, 2018-19 at Gillette Stadium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcrbDYe4qL4

With this update, here are the game schedules:



2016

Home (4): UCLA, Southern Miss, Utah State, UMass

Away (5): Arizona (N), Utah, West Virginia (N), Boise State, Cincinnati



2017

Home (5): Utah, Cal, Boise State, San Jose State, UMass

Away (4): Utah State, East Carolina, Fresno State, Hawaii



2018

Home (3): Utah State, Northern Illinois, Hawaii

Away (6): Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington, Boise State, Utah, UMass



2019

Home (4): Wisconsin, USC, Washington, Boise State **WOW...look at this home schedule!

Away (3): Virginia, Washington State, UMass



**Southern Miss home game in 2015 is almost certainly going to be pushed out (too many games already announced that season) and there are some ND games that hopefully end up on the schedule in the 2020 range.

http://byucougars.com/m-football/byu-umass-announce-football-series" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



4 game series is official.

Quite frankly, the 4 games seem well placed and provide a little relief in some spots where it is probably needed.

I like the fact that the first games are in Provo. Too many series have started on the road.



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“With UMass joining BYU as an independent football program in 2016 this series makes a lot of sense for both schools,” said BYU director of athletics Tom Holmoe. “It will be a great experience for our team to play at Gillette Stadium—home of the New England Patriots —in front of the BYU faithful in that part of the country.”

So they are playing in NFL stadiums in 2016 (Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins), 2018-2019 (New England Patriots). I like that.

UMass plays football?

Upside is a reward for the team to play in Gillette Stadium. Other than that not sure we get much for traveling to Boston other than to fill an open spot on the schedule.

NDCougar wrote:
Upside is a reward for the team to play in Gillette Stadium. Other than that not sure we get much for traveling to Boston other than to fill an open spot on the schedule.

Probably cannot hurt the opportunity to schedule them in Basketball can it?