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After weeks of "will they/won't they" and some passive aggressive sniping, BYU and Utah agreed to extend one of the most unique battles in college football. After taking a two year break, BYU and Utah will meet not just for the next three seasons, but also in 2019 and 2020. The two games are currently scheduled to kick off the season, with the 2019 game currently scheduled for August 29, 2019 in Provo, with the 2020 game scheduled for September 3, in Salt Lake. Both of those are season openers for both teams, and are both scheduled on Thursdays, meaning they are likely to be national broadcasts, possibly as the only major football game in that time slot.
Is that set in stone though? Could they get moved to a different day?
VTF acquired the contract from the University of Utah via a GRAMA request, and while most of the language is pretty boilerplate for football games (Visiting team gets $250,000, visiting team can buy 2,500 tickets, etc), but this is an interesting clause:
Now, 2020 is a long way away. We don't know if BYU will still have an ESPN partnership then, or if they will be with somebody else (or nobody). We don't know what will happen with the Pac-12 network. Other games could get scheduled for 2019 and 2020. We won't know what the times are for a looooong time. There's a lot of potential uncertainty, and this clause leaves the door open for a possible Friday move, or even a Saturday.
Moving either of these games to Saturday would probably be less than ideal, but depending on who else is playing on Thursday, a Friday game might actually be better as far as national exposure is concerned. Given the history between these two teams, and with these being season openers, the attention given to these particular matchups should be huge. Getting them on a non-Saturday would probably be best for everybody, but you never know.
Here's hoping the games get the national attention and spotlight they deserve, and that they are scheduled for many, many more years after 2020.