BYU and Virginia push back their football series, add one more game.
BYU and Virginia are in fact going to play their scheduled future football series, with some adjustments. The original series called for the Cougars to travel to Charlottesville, Virginia, but that game in 2019 is being move to 2021 and will be played at LaVell Edwards Stadium. While the 2023 game will remain in that same year but will be played at Virginia.
The one additional wrinkle to this is that BYU will get an additional home game and will host Virginia in 2025, so essentially the Cougars are getting a 2-for-1 with a Power Five school.
New Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall had mixed feelings about playing his former team and wanted the game to be pushed back so that he might not have to face his former players.
“I have feelings for the players and this program – they’re not going away,” Mendenhall said at his press conference where he announced he was leaving BYU. “They’re not going away in four years. I would just assume that game would be moved back to when I’m done coaching whenever that would be. I don’t want to play BYU and I don’t know how I’d handle it. If it’s up to me, I don’t want that to happen because this is the place that shaped and had such an influence on my life that I don’t see how that could happen and I hope it doesn’t.”
The game did get pushed back but possibly not far enough as Mendenhall signed a five-year deal meaning he could be on the sidelines for the first game of this series, if he gets an extension, and that game will be in Provo.
