Wisconsin will now play at BYU football in 2017 instead of 2019

After a number of bad news hits over the first week of fall camp for the BYU Cougars, we finally are given some good news. Although the news is from the scheduling side of things, Cougars fans should be excited since we get to see the Wisconsin Badgers invade Lavell Edwards Stadium a couple of years early. Today Jay Drew of the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the teams have moved up the game that was originally scheduled for 2019 to 2017:

BYU's home football game against Wisconsin has been moved up two years, from 2019 to 2017 (Sept. 16, 2017 at LaVell Edwards Stadium).

— Jay Drew (@drewjay) August 13, 2015

With the game now being played on Sept 16th, it becomes a good news/bad news announcement as those that were holding out for a long sought after, but not likely, game against Ohio State will have to wait for even longer to see that happen. With the change the 2017 schedule is almost set as they have home games against the Utah Utes, Wisconsin Badgers, Boise State Broncos, San Jose State Spartans, and Massachusetts Minutemen. The road/neutral site games consist of LSU Tigers, Utah State Aggies, Mississippi St. Bulldogs, East Carolina Pirates, Fresno State Bulldogs, UNLV Rebels, and Hawaii Warriors.

As you can clearly see the schedule isn't quite finished because there are only five home games compared to seven away. Tom Holmoe has mentioned in the past that five home games is not acceptable for the program or to the fans. So this means one of three things still needs to happen. The first would be to schedule a 13th game that would be the 6th home game for the Cougars and would leave them most likely without a bye week. Based on the limited dates that would most likely be an FCS school. Keep in mind that the Cougars have the opportunity to play the 13th game based on the fact that they travel to play Hawaii at the end of the year. The second option would be to move other games around in order to create a six game home schedule. This would take some cooperation from other schools and so this might be the more difficult option. The third option would be to face the wraith of fans and keep the schedule as is and only have five home games. I don't think this is really an option, but when it comes to scheduling you can never tell.

If the schedule ends up with any resemblance of the status quo, you will want to make sure you have your season tickets, and a bottle of antacids near by as the first six games could be tough. LSU, Utah, Wisconsin, USU, Boise State, and Miss State would bring nightmares to most coaches. The question is will BYU be closer to a 6-0 start or will they be fighting to avoid a 0-6 start.