Inside a Dallas hotel, Brigham Young athletic director Tom Holmoe , football coach Kalani Sitake and others from the Cougars ’ delegation pitched their case to the Big 12 for a much-desired invitation. The year was 2016. The Big 12 sought proposals from multiple schools while evaluating expansion.
BYU had yearned for entry into a power conference for decades, with no luck. This time felt different. The pitch went well.
“Quite frankly, when we walked out of there, I thought we had done a great job,” Holmoe told USA TODAY Sports. “I thought, ‘If they’re taking a team, we’re in.’” Perhaps, BYU would have been in, if the Big 12 had taken a team.
The Big 12 passed on expansion . The Cougars became briefly crestfallen, but their mood rebounded. Holmoe sensed the Cougars were close.
Keep pushing, and their day would come. “We got together and said, 'Let’s just keep going,'” Holmoe said. “We came out of there stronger than when we went into that presentation.
I think that was a turning point in BYU athletics.” BYU’s has moment finally arrived. Now, in its second Big 12 season, No.
9 BYU (8-0) enjoys pole positioning to represent the Big 12 in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. The Cougars, who will play rival Utah on Saturday, join Indiana as college football’s biggest surprises. The media picked BYU to finish 13th in the Big 12.
Joke’s on us. Forty years after BYU won its only national championship in program history, the Cougars could .
