Expect Hopkins Horn to jump in at any minute now. Per the Leader:
Brigham Young University will leave the Mountain West Conference for the 2011-12 season, go independent in football and join the WCC in all other sports, notably men's basketball, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation told ESPN.com.
BYU and the WCC will make a combined announcement later Tuesday.
This is notable to Texas because:
A. We're set to play BYU in 2011, '13 & '14. After the power moves by the Mountain West Conference in pillaging the WAC, BYU was forced to "settle" for the WCC. This is notable for BYU because it effectively forces them to schedule 12 true "non-conference" games instead of being able to pick a few WAC teams to play every year. Expect BYU to remain aggressive in scheduling high-profile teams like Texas to keep up brand recognition. Conversely, the more exposure BYU gets (not on Versus anymore, hooray!), the better Texas' foresight to schedule them appears.
B. Obviously, BYU going independent will provide some semblance of a template should Texas choose to go independent. If BYU independence is a smashing success, there's no reason to think Texas going independent shouldn't be more successful than the Battle of San Jacinto. If BYU fails or fades into obscurity, Texas brass will at least have a data point to mitigate any unbridled optimism about heading towards independence.
C. Also important to note is that BYU beat OU last year. And any team that beats OU is a friend of ours (well, at least until 2011 anyway).
Poll
How successful will BYU be as an independent football program?
Great smashing success (45 votes)
A teensy bit more exposure (149 votes)
The more things change, the more things stay the same (88 votes)
Doomed to failure (84 votes)
366 total votes


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