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Last summer, BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall didn't mince words when talking to a reporter from the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman about how much BYU wanted to join the Big 12 Conference.

On Tuesday, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe pounded the same drum, pretty much, while still insisting that independence in football and membership in the West Coast Conference in most other sports is treating the Cougars well.

Responding to a question during his roundtable discussion about whether he believes another conference realignment shift is coming, Holmoe said:

"Yeah, I think so. I think there will probably be one more. … I am hoping [for more shifting] because it is our intention that we would be playing in what they would commonly call a Power-5 conference sometime in the near future."

Later, Holmoe talked about the difficulty of keeping up with the schools in Power-5 conferences who will be getting "$20 million checks" annually from the College Football Playoff and acknowledged he is concerned about the fiscal disparity for schools such as BYU.

"Well, I think [the concern] is real," he said. "We are not going to disclose our books or anything, but it is easy enough for anybody to find out how much money they get, because it is public record. And I think I am being open enough to say that we are not in that league. So to try to compete in every aspect at that level, without having that [financial] support, is hard. So I don't think we can do it indefinitely. We are trying to come up with new ideas, new ways, to stay fiscally competitive. And that is something that we work on every day."

Holmoe said BYU's move to football independence in 2011 has been worth it, but agreed several times that it probably isn't sustainable over the long haul — which is why he and Mendenhall have been outspoken recently about joining a Power-5 conference as soon as possible.

Look, let me say something [about that dream]," he said. "I think it would be really difficult to be in a Power-5 conference. I am not crying in my milk. It is hard to be a really good football team now, and evidence of that would be Alabama. … It is not easy to win games these days, even for the great teams. And I consider Alabama a great team. You look at a school like the University of Utah. It was a very difficult transition for them going into the Pac-12. It is hard to win football games in a Power-5 conference, and I give them credit. Last year they came back after two tough years and had a real solid year in a tough conference.

I stand corrected in that it is not so much that I am, 'woe is independence,' as much as, 'it is tough to win football games where ever you are, Power-5, independent or group of five. And so we just happen to be independent, and that's where we got to win our games."

The Big 12, which is the only logical P-5 landing spot for BYU, was shut out of the CFP, but Holmoe didn't see that as a positive development for BYU's chances of joining that conference as others did.

"Well, I think they have reacted to that," he said. "The reaction was, 'we will hold our ground and try to continue on this process as we have, and try to look at the possibility of playing a conference championship game without expanding our conference.' So that's their reaction at this point in time. The question is, will that be the solution to what they want to do? Will that be their final move? And that remains to be seen, and that is why for the time being there is not a lot of discussion in the media about it, or at least reaction. I mean, you can talk about it all you want. There is not going to be much of a reaction, because at this point in time, that's their plan."

Holmoe also didn't jump up and down last month when the ACC said it would reverse its stance and now consider BYU to count as a P-5 opponent in its mandate to its teams that they play at least one non conference game against a P-5 opponent a year. He said ACC schools have been interested in playing BYU long before the stance was reversed.

"My responsibility is to schedule games, and I know that we had scheduled games against the ACC. And then I am going to continue to discuss that. So the response from ACC teams was very positive toward BYU. So amidst the conversation in the media and amongst our fans in just wanting to know about that, there were all kinds of swirling 'what it meant.' It didn't mean anything to me because we had games scheduled.

Now, it didn't help us to have … I think there was a lot of negative connotation with that. I don't think it helped us a great deal. When the ACC came out and said, hey, we recognized them and we will play them. I don't think it helped us a great deal. I think it was, hey, thank you, we are playing them and are going to continue playing them. And that's my attitude on it. I try not to get too high or too low and react to everything, because the bottom line is we are trying to put together games that help us be successful that would give us position to better ourselves and play in the biggest games we can. Meaning, as they call it now, the New Year's Day games and CFP, going forward."