BYU AD Tom Holmoe mentioned one specific Mountain West team that he would like to schedule.
BYU athletics director Tom Holmoe is out in San Diego getting ready for Wednesday night’s Poinsettia Bowl vs. Wyoming, but earlier in the day he spoke with the Mighty 1090 in San Diego to discuss BYU athletics.
Holmoe was asked about how BYU was handling its independence after breaking away from the Mountain West and the move after that which has been to join a Power Five conference.
“We would have loved to have been [invited] to a Power Five conference,” Holmoe said. “That’s where the best games are played. That’s where the best championships are played. They advance to the best bowl games. There is no question that is the ultimate for college football. We made a venture to go independent to get to that point. We were very close, but it just didn’t happen.”
Holmoe saying that BYU was “very close” to joining the Big 12 was news to most but there was no follow up on what he meant by being close, especially since the Big 12 did not expand. Maybe Holmoe was referring to the point that BYU was a finalist to potentially join that league.
“In order to make that happen, we just really have to improve,” Holmoe said. “Even though I think we have a strong national brand, we have to win bowl games.”
Also, what came up was that Holmoe had being in talks with former San Diego State athletics director Jim Sterk about scheduling a football series with the Aztecs.
“San Diego is the one game that we really want, San Diego State,” Holmoe said. “We are hoping we can get something done to play home-and-home in the future.”
It makes sense for BYU to play teams in California and good one;s at that as the Aztecs are one of the best team from the Group of five and have a pair of conference titles and 22 wins over the past two seasons. In fact, Holmoe tweeted a few weeks ago that he is opebn to play any Mountain West team on the football field.
Here is the full interview:
