BYU Football: Why the Dixie State game is a great addition

On Wednesday, BYU Football announced a future game with new FCS member Dixie State in 2022.

BYU Football announced it’s 11th game of the 2022 season against new FCS member Dixie State. Dixie State is making the jump to D1 this upcoming season as an Independent team and will play the Cougars on Saturday November 12th.

The Trailblazers have been playing at the D2 level but decided to jump up to D1 as an Independent leaving a lot of questions as to where they will join. The most obvious choice would be the Big Sky. Teams don’t normally join the FCS without a plan of joining a conference.

The initial reaction to the announcement has had mixed reaction from BYU football fans, but the announcement should be welcomed by everyone because it has many benefits that other teams wouldn’t be able to offer.

Schedule

We look at 2019 as a tough season, but honestly every season in the near future is a really tough schedule. In 2022, the Cougars will be playing Utah, Baylor, Oregon, Boise State, Arkansas, Stanford and Utah State to name just a few games that may be really tough. Obviously it being four seasons out and there not being many if any of the same players on the roster as now, it is impossible to know who will or won’t be good by that time.

To give perspective, four years ago teams like UCLA, Toledo, Western Kentucky and Baylor were all ranked, so to say that teams like Arkansas or Stanford won’t be really good teams is premature.

BYU Football is going to want to finish out the season strong and with their final games being against Dixie State, East Carolina and Stanford they will have a good chance to do win. The Cougars will want to be healthy against Stanford and finishing their season with two teams like Dixie State and ECU can be beneficial to them.

Timing

Most teams play their games against FCS teams in the first three games of the season before getting into conference play. With no conference, BYU is given the option to either play better teams early and play the FCS school towards the end or play their FCS school early and then play whoever is available late in the season.

The Cougars open up with Utah, Baylor and Oregon. If BYU Football decided to play an FCS school during one of these first three games instead, they would likely be stuck playing a team from a conference like the Sun Belt, MAC or even another FCS school later in the season.

Former defensive back and current BYU football analyst Brian Logan said today on BYU Sports Nation that playing an FCS school later in the season allows a week to recover a bit from the normal grind and build confidence by getting a convincing win while most other teams are playing tough conference games.

The team

There is no rule that says BYU has to play an FCS school, but since going Independent seven years ago, BYU has played an FCS team nine times and has at least one scheduled every season through 2020 with still a game to add in both 2021 and 2022.

Assuming that BYU is going to play an FCS team every season, why not play a team from Utah? With FCS games already getting less interest and following than normal games against G5/P5 competition why not make it as appealing as possible?

Also, with Dixie State being Independent, the payout may not be as expensive as other teams. Since the Trailblazers don’t have an automatic 8-9 conference games per season to rely on they will be more willing to take whatever they can get. And even if it is the same pay, why not keep it in state?

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We’re not pretending that Dixie State is like scheduling Alabama or Clemson, but it is a really good FCS game and the timing, current schedule, and the team only make it more appealing. Besides, if BYU is going to schedule a FCS school anyway would you rather it be Indiana State or North Carolina Central?

Yep, that’s what we thought.