BYU Athletic Director Tom Holmoe Makes Surprising Remarks About Realignment

BYU football has been in the rumor mill quite a bit this season, as the program had been mentioned as a serious expansion candidate for both the Big XII and Big East conferences.  Such is the life of an FBS-level Independent with a large and nationwide fan base, strong tradition and considerable television appeal.

However, those talks have died down considerably, and BYU still remains an Independent.  Speculation as to the reasons behind this has been rampant, since BYU is extremely tight-lipped about conference realignment talks (as they should be, since they could lose leverage and trust if their discussions went public).

BYU Athletic Director Tom Holmoe finally opened up about BYU's conference realignment, setting the record straight Monday night on coach Bronco Mendenhall's weekly radio show on KSL Radio.  A summary of the main points can be found on the KSL website, as well as audio files containing the entirety of both Holmoe's and Mendenhall's remarks.

Some of Holmoe's remarks confirmed speculation that had been made in the media.  However, Holmoe also made several revelations that were quite surprising, and contained information that hadn't been speculated about at all.

Let's break down what Holmoe and Mendenhall had to say about the Big East, Big XII and Independence.

Big East

It had been speculated that BYUtv and television rights for home games were the breaking points in the discussions between BYU and the Big East.  BYU had been criticized for being too demanding and had been labeled as "arrogant."

Holmoe presented the events in a rather different light.  According to Holmoe:

"At that point in time, they (Big East) were eager to make this happen and get BYU on board. We weren't at that time ready to do it, so we gave them a proposal. In that proposal, we said 'we could do that; we could sign on right now, if there were TV rights for our home games,' but that would have been certain--we would have have known exactly what we were getting into at that time. Outside of that, we wouldn't have known... I think it's misconstrued that we came in leading that we had to have this. We tried to come up with a possible solution once we had come to an impasse."

Basically, the Big East really wanted BYU, but BYU wasn't sold on the idea of joining the conference.  So, as the Big East tried aggressively to get BYU to join, the school made an offer that could convince it to join, basically saying "we're not sold on joining, but if you give us television rights to all of our home games we will put our concerns aside and join."

That offer wasn't acceptable for the Big East, so the two parties negotiated further to see if they could come up with an offer enticing enough for BYU to join that was still acceptable from the Big East's point of view.  Such a compromise was not easily found, so the talks were shelved.

Holmoe also said that although negotiations with the Big East are currently at an impasse, they aren't completely dead, and the two parties could resume talks in the future.  According to Holmoe:

"You can see that things have slowed down; I think that's apparent... I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month or next year."

Holmoe also attacked the speculation that the relationship between the Big East had soured and that there is animosity between the two parties now.  According to him:

"The Big East has been so respectful and honorable in their conversations, I think it's unfair for anybody in the media to characterize those discussions like that when they weren't there...I really admire (Commissioner) John Marinatto and the Big East for having great conversations with us, and this is how you do business--you do it behind the scenes, in confidentiality, so that you give yourself and the people you're working with an opportunity to come to a deal."

Big XII

This is where Holmoe dropped the bombshell.  There was a whole lot of speculation that television rights were also the breaking point in the talks between BYU and the Big XII. 

Holmoe debunked that speculation as complete myth, saying that talks never got that far.  According to Holmoe:

"We didn't get too far down the road (with the Big 12); we were told by the Big 12 that we were a team they were interested in, but we didn't even have discussions about television... TV is a part of any discussion now with conferences, but for people to say that the Big East was a very similar situation to the Big 12--it's not fair, because we didn't have television conversations before the Big 12 went and invited other teams."

Wow.  The media wasn't even close on speculation on that point.

So, BYU never got that far into talks with the Big XII before TCU and West Virginia were invited into the conference.  There was something that made the Big XII decide not to make BYU their top expansion candidate, but television rights or demands that BYU made were not that something.

It sounds like Holmoe isn't even sure why the Big XII backed off from BYU.  That could mean that it is a sensitive topic, such as Sunday play, that the Big XII doesn't really want to go into detail about.

Holmoe made it clear that the ball is firmly in the Big XII's court right now, stating:

"You'll have to ask them; don't ask me. We are playing football games."

Independence

Most of the information on this topic came from coach Bronco Mendenhall.  He is obviously a fan of BYU's current status as an Independent, but also said that conference affiliation could be a possibility in the future.  According to Mendenhall"

"This idea that independence is a negative--I'm not buying it. There are conference advantages, no question, but as we continue to work with our broadcast partner ESPN and our scheduling parameters...to say that it hasn't been a good success, but a great success...just look at the number of people that have seen us play, and we still have a great chance to win ten football games...  At some point, someone in a conference will say 'it's a very unique brand, that wins a lot of football games, that has a worldwide following and tremendous assets, and we want them.  Until then, I'd just as soon stay where we are, and play whoever we want, on TV."

This statement actually reveals quite a bit about BYU's general attitude towards conference realignment right now. 

BYU is happy where it is at right now as an Independent, but is open to joining a conference if the offer is right.

Author's note: All quotes were obtained from the summary of a radio interview given on KSL radio on November 28th, 2011, as found on KSL's website.  The link to that summary and the radio interview itself is included in this article.