Washington has dropped their home and home series with BYU that was supposed to be played in 2011 and 2012 and replaced with them with Eastern Washington. Washington will still be playing in Provo in 2010.
Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian, a BYU alumni had this to say about their scheduling changes:
"We've made some enhancements to our future schedules that, I think, will really serve our program well," said head coach Steve Sarkisian. "It is a delicate balance to build schedules that provide the best opportunity for our team to be at peak performance. It is important to gain depth and experience as we compete for Pac-10 and national championships year-in and year-out. And, since our fans have such a great reputation for being loyal and loud, we want to have as many home games in Husky Stadium as we possibly can.
This leaves BYU a hole in their schedule with not much time to fill. What will be interesting to see is if BYU fills in the 2011 Washington slot. It is widely believed that Boise State will be invited into the Mountain West Conference in the summer of 2010, and under rule would have to play one more season in the WAC. Boise States first season in the Mountain West if this were to happen would be in 2011. With this drop BYU currently only has 2 non-conference games scheduled for 2011. If Boise were added they would only need 3 non-conference games. If they only schedule only one more team, this could be a sign of a planned MWC expansion. BYU already has Boise State on their schedule for the 2012 to the 2015 seasons.
This should be interesting to watch within the next year. With this late drop BYU will likely be in a frenzy to fill their scheduling holes in just a little amount of time. They may be stuck scheduling an FCS team or a lower mid major.