It has occurred to me that probably no other new Big12 member will benefit more from this new affiliation than BYU.
How so?
Well, because the West Coast conference is an absolute weak sister/non-factor in Olympic sports, and only a 1-2 bid league in basketball.
Even putting football aside, moving from the WCC to the Big 12 is a bigger move in other sports for BYU than a move from the AAC to the Big12 will be for everybody else!
Regarding baseball, it looks as though their baseball opponents play either Thursday thru Saturday weekend series, or Saturday double-headers.
It’s going to be awesome- 100% agree that BYU benefits big time for basketball. The zags are amazing and St Mary’s has been our rival because of devastating endings. I’ll miss those games. Hope we keep them in OOC. But beyond that B12 is going to be awesome!
Clearly BYU brings a lot to the table. Should be fun playing them.
I’ve been to UH football games in 30 different stadiums. Can’t wait to add to that with the new conference. Looking forward to making the trip to Provo in a few years
From BYU game day thread last year. Multiple commenters said that BYU fans outnumbered UH fans. This is consistent with my recollection. Maybe not 3-1, but clearly more BYU fans.
Yes I was at the game, and no it wasn’t 50/50 at best. Towards the end of the game it became mostly BYU fans and they all quit social distancing and started moving towards the visitor section.
BYU did have a good showing though…maybe 2500-3000 fans…we had maybe 5000-6000
I wouldn’t put much emphasis into last year’s attendance as a regular occurrence because it was in the middle of that really awkward time with covid where a lot of people weren’t attending games. I was at the game and our fans tried to follow distancing guidelines a lot more than BYU fans, who really sat wherever they pleased, creating huge areas of solid blue. By halftime I had so many of them around me, moving freely, maskless and without regard for anyone else, we gave up and left. This was at a time where masks were mandatory, btw. But there was no way to enforce it. They weren’t bad people, necessarily. But it made me uncomfortable so I did what was best for me.
Anyway, there were too many people there to count by hand, and the way they were dispersed, I can’t guess to the percentage. But they definitely had a lot of folks there.
Byu replaces the void left by 1 of UT or Ou leaving then us, cincy and ucf sorta replaces the other. We now just need for a top 10 team to emerge along with getting some more top25 teams in the rankings from the big 12. It’s very doable and I think if we get 20 to 25 mil a yr and the auto bid in playoffs then it’s a good stable p5 league. Teams won’t be trying to leave.