Utah Reportedly Set to Join Archrival BYU in the Big 12

The BYU-Utah rivalry could be a conference game again in 2024

After a wild day of conference realignment, the University of Utah could be joining archrival BYU in the Big 12 for the 2024 season. On Friday, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that Utah and Arizona State have officially applied for Big 12 membership. 

Sources: Both Utah and Arizona State have applied for formal membership to the Big 12 Conference, and there’s a call tonight with the Big 12's presidents and chancellors to discuss their membership. Arizona applied and was approved yesterday.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 4, 2023

In conference realignment, formal applications are a technicality. Schools don't apply for conference membership unless they have the votes to be accepted into the league.

Arizona has already been voted into the conference and is expected to be officially announced this weekend. It is assumed that Utah and Arizona State would be the last additions to the Big 12 in this round of realignment, growing the number of Big 12 schools to 16 for the 2024 season.

For BYU, the reunion with archrival Utah is bittersweet. On one hand, many BYU fans would have loved to see Utah left behind in a conference that looked more like the Mountain West of old than the Pac-12 of old. The Utes enjoyed a unique advantage over BYU since 2011 as the only Power Five program in the state - an advantage they touted often. There would have been some poetic justice to BYU gaining a spot at the P5 table at the same time that Utah lost its spot at the table.

On the other hand, the BYU-Utah rivalry (also known as the "Holy War"), will return to its natural habitat: a late November game with conference championship implications. College football in its purest form is built on rivalries, something that has been lost in the shuffle of conference realignment over the last decade. This is a rare opportunity for a rivalry to be renewed as a conference matchup, and it will have its biggest and brightest stage ever.

The rivalry will create a lot of value for the Big 12 and will consistently be one of the best conference matchups every season. It's safe to assume that BYU and Utah will be one of the protected matchups in the conference, meaning the two teams will play each other annually.

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