BYU/Coastal Carolina Series Reportedly Has Return Date For Provo

PROVO, Utah – Are you ready for part two of BYU/Coastal Carolina? Don’t get too excited. It’s still reportedly a long way away.

Kevin Kelley from FBschedules.com obtained a contract from Coastal Carolina that indicates the two-game football series between BYU and Coastal Carolina will conclude in Provo on September 17, 2033.

BYU, Coastal Carolina set return game for series that began in 2020https://t.co/xmzPp8aJSz pic.twitter.com/P7zMed0D1a

— FBSchedules.com (@FBSchedules) February 6, 2023

Your eyes are not deceiving you. That’s a decade away.

The first all-time meeting between the two schools was one of the greatest games of the COVID-impacted 2020 season.

Coastal Carolina was originally going to host Liberty in an ESPN College Gameday spectacle. But Liberty had a COVID outbreak, so BYU sprung into action with only 72 hours notice to piece together an undefeated showdown. The incentive for BYU was to try and impress the College Football Playoff committee to earn a New Year’s Six bowl bid.

BYU lost the cross-country battle 22-17, coming up one yard short in their lone setback of the 2020 season. It was a game deemed “Mormons vs. Mullets” as Coastal Carolina fans sold knockoff t-shirts that imitated the iconic Notre Dame/Miami shirts from the 1980s, “Catholics vs. Convicts.”

BYU/Coastal Carolina discussed the return trip to Provo in 2020

BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe agreed to the matchup without a contract when the game came together. Coastal Carolina athletic director Matt Hogue made a verbal commitment to Holmoe that the Chanticleers would return to Provo if the Cougars came to Conway, South Carolina, for the College Gameday showdown.

“We obviously don’t have any contracts drawn yet,” said BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe on December 3, 2020. “But look, Matt [Hogue] at Coastal and I got on the phone; we don’t know each other, but this can happen. We’re ADs. You can do this. We have help from ESPN; we have a lot of people working for us. We get way more attention for something like this. But we have so many people putting this together.

“We’ll get down there [in contract talks] somehow. We’re not going to ask for payment or anything, just are you willing to come back and play another game in Provo at some time, so it’s a home-and-home? And he said, ‘yes.’ I said, ‘okay, we’ll work it out.’ We’ll work it out after the season.”

BYU is now a member of the Big 12 Conference

FBschedules.com reports that the amended contract for the agreed 2033 date was in November 2021. That November 2021 date is two months after BYU was formally invited into the Big 12 Conference.

As a member of the Big 12 Conference, BYU has only three non-conference dates. Coastal Carolina is a Sun Belt Conference program that has four dates for non-conference play each year.

2033 schedule for BYU

The 2033 non-conference schedule has two games in place for BYU. A road game at Virginia Tech on September 10 and Coastal Carolina the following week on September 17 in Provo.

BYU has never hosted Coastal Carolina in Provo. The Chanticleers lead the series 1-0.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and hoMitch’she Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU moving to the Big 12 Conference on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.

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