Fresno State and Boise State share a BYU problem. Could rivals work together to solve it?

Fresno State has a problem. Boise State has the same problem. Will the Mountain West Conference rivals consider working together to try to solve it?

The programs both are looking for a non-conference football game in 2023, with Brigham Young getting out of a number of contracted games because it is joining the Big 12 Conference.

Fresno State will lose a home game — it was scheduled to play the Cougars Oct. 7 at Bulldog Stadium. Boise State athletics director Jeremiah Dickey in a January social media post confirmed it will lose a road game — it was scheduled to play BYU Oct. 21 at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah.

Both have open dates on their schedule in late September that year, the 23rd and 30th.

The Bulldogs and Broncos will play a Mountain West game this season in Boise, but will rotate off their conference schedules in 2023, and a non-conference game between conference rivals is not unprecedented. North Carolina and Wake Forest are separated only by about 80 miles of highway, but are in different divisions of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and they played a non-conference game just last season.

There also is no Mountain West rule that precludes conference rivals from playing a non-conference game, according to a conference spokesman.

Fresno State and Boise State could even agree to a home-and-home non-conference series with the Bulldogs making a future trip to Idaho so both could get a hot-ticket home game against a heated rival.

Frank Pucher, Fresno State’s senior associate athletics director for external relations, said the department is exploring every potential opponent and opportunity to fill the hole created with the loss of the 2023 game against Brigham Young, but would not detail any potential discussions with Boise State or any other program. He did acknowledge the challenges with limited time and available opponents to fill it.

“Anybody, anytime, anywhere has been our motto around here for a long time and the same rings true today,” Pucher said. “We’ve left no stone unturned in our pursuit of future games, but our No. 1 scheduling goal is to annually play premier opponents in front of the Red Wave.

“That’s what this program and this fan base deserves.”

The Bulldogs, and upgrades to future football schedules

Fresno State athletics director Terry Tumey in 2018 inherited a scheduling nightmare that included an opening for a home game in 2020 and a lack of home games on the books in future seasons. But, despite that, the Bulldogs have been able to upgrade their non-conference schedules, not only getting Power Five teams to come to Bulldog Stadium, but significantly more guarantee money when playing on the road.

The Bulldogs are scheduled to play Texas Tech and Kansas from the Big 12, both in 2-for-1 series. They have home-and-home series with Oregon State and Washington State from the Pac-12.

They also are getting $1.85 million to play at Michigan in 2024 and $1.75 million to play at USC in 2028, among other lucrative paydays for those guarantee games.

But it has not been easy, illustrated perfectly by 2023 and the loss of the game with BYU.

The Bulldogs and Cougars were to play a home-and-home series with the game at Bulldog Stadium and a return contest at LaVell Edwards Stadium, on Oct. 9, 2027. The contract was signed by Tumey and BYU athletics director Tom Holmoe on Nov. 4, 2020. It was a done deal, and then it wasn’t.

How a large hole developed in Bulldogs’ schedule

BYU 11 months later was invited to join the Big 12 Conference and had to start to rework its future schedules.

When an FBS independent, the Cougars needed to schedule 12 games every season and when in the Big 12 they will likely need only three while playing conference games for the first time since 2010 when they were in the Mountain West. There was a clause included in the game contract between Fresno State and BYU allowing both schools to cancel “if they decide to join a conference, whether currently existing or newly created, that is different from its current conference or independent affiliation,” and BYU used it.

Suddenly, Fresno State was again looking for a home game in 2023. It already has games at Purdue and at Arizona State and a home game against FCS power Eastern Washington.

Most college football programs schedule years ahead, and all of the programs in the Pac-12 have their non-conference schedules set in 2023, as do the other programs in the Mountain Division of the Mountain West.

To get another Power Five opponent, Fresno State would also likely have to broker a home-and-home or a 2-for-1, and it does not have room for a return road game in its future schedules until 2027 when it was supposed to close out the series against BYU. There will be other programs falling off the BYU schedule and Cincinnati, Houston and UCF also are joining the Big 12, but in moving from the American Athletic Conference they do not have as many scheduling issues as the FBS independent Cougars.

There are a few opponents out there, but no guaranteed match for the Bulldogs even if a series with Boise State would seem to line up very well for both programs.

But, no question, both programs need to find opponents.

“The reality is, we inherited significant holes in the 2020s, which needed to be addressed and we face very real geographic challenges when you consider the majority of FBS programs are at least two time zones away and our own in-state Autonomous Five institutions have proven to shy away from coming to Fresno,” Pucher said.

“But we’ve worked around the clock and been as creative as we can to solve our immediate issues and bring exciting games to Fresno State in future years. Scheduling efforts never stop. If there’s a prominent football program in the nation they’ve heard from us, multiple times.”