This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
BYU's football program got a little bit of good news on Thursday morning, courtesy of ESPN.com's Brett McMurphy.
The college football analyst reported that Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football teams that play BYU will now be able to count those games against the league's mandate that its teams play at least one nonconference game per year against a Power 5 team.
In essence, the ACC is saying that BYU qualifies as a P5 program.
Why the change of heart?
Probably because schools and conference learned from the first year of the college football playoff that strength of schedule does matter to the CFP selection committee, which snubbed Baylor and TCU last month partly because those Big 12 teams did not play difficult nonconference schedules.
Last spring, the SEC said that games against BYU would not count toward its Power 5 mandate, and the ACC followed suit a bit later. The mandates were supposed to start in 2017.
McMurphy reported Thursday that an SEC spokesman said the SEC's position toward BYU has not changed.
BYU will open the 2017 season against an SEC team, LSU, on Sept. 2 in the AdvoCare Texas Kickoff at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
The ACC source told McMurphy that games against BYU will help the league's overall strength of schedule.
The ACC and the SEC are the only leagues that require their teams to play at least one P5 non conference game each year.
As of today, the only ACC team on BYU's future schedule is Virginia. The Cougars are scheduled to play in Charlottesville on Sept. 7, 2019 and in Provo in 2023 on a date to be determined.