No. 8 BYU faces Coastal Carolina on short notice
No. 14 Chanticleers’ original opponent, No. 25 Liberty, was hit with coronavirus outbreak
Word came to Coastal Carolina on Wednesday that the most significant home game in the history of the program was in serious jeopardy.
The 14th-ranked Chanticleers were scheduled to face No. 25 Liberty on Saturday in an unexpected Top-25 matchup that persuaded ESPN to send College GameDay to Conway, S.C., for the first time.
But COVID-19 had crept into the Liberty program. Coastal Carolina needed a Plan B — as in BYU. Coach Kalani Sitake’s eighth-ranked Cougars have been primed to pounce on short notice if the opportunity arose to bolster their chances to reach a major bowl.
“Last week I said: ‘Kalani, it’s kind of like when there’s a married couple about ready to have a baby and you have your bag packed by the door, that’s how it’s going to be maybe,’ ” BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said. “You might have to pick up your bag and go.”
With ESPN and the Sun Belt Conference’s assistance, Coastal Carolina and BYU finalized a deal Thursday morning to play a game about 56 hours later.
The upstart Chanticleers (9-0) and barnstorming Cougars (9-0) meet Saturday in maybe the most intriguing game of the college football weekend, one that could position the winner for a multimillion-dollar postseason payday.
Coastal Carolina athletic director Matt Hogue said Liberty officials reached out Wednesday to say the Flames might not be able to play.
Kurt Dargis, director of college football for ESPN, said he got a call from Sun Belt Conference officials Wednesday afternoon informing him of the problem with what the network had turned into a showcase game.
ESPN owns the television rights for both the Sun Belt and BYU, and has been helping the independent Cougars rebuild a schedule that fell apart when Power Five conferences decided to play mostly league games during the pandemic.
Dargis called Holmoe and asked if BYU was interested. Holmoe said he needed to run it by Sitake, but it only took the AD about 45 minutes to get back with the news: If Liberty could not play, BYU would.
“It was really a whirlwind and went very quickly,” Dargis said.
The Cougars had practiced Monday and Tuesday as if they might play Saturday. No set opponent, only possibilities.
BYU’s next scheduled game is Dec. 12 vs. San Diego State.
Holmoe has been trying to add games for weeks. Washington called the week before Thanksgiving, but the Huskies couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t have to pull out if another Pac-12 team became available. BYU wanted to see where it stood in the College Football Playoff rankings before it committed.
On Wednesday, BYU quickly transitioned to Coastal Carolina prep in practice and coaches pulled long nights at the office. Even though the game was not yet a done deal, BYU’s equipment truck started Wednesday night on the 2,200-mile trip from Provo to Coastal’s campus about 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
At Coastal Carolina, where the Chants are having their best season since moving to the highest level of Division I football in 2016, the transition from prepping for Liberty to BYU went into overdrive. Coach Jamey Chadwell said they’ll have to keep it simple.
“When it’s this short of a timeframe, you got to go back to things that you hope you can do well and see if it will hold up against a really quality opponent that’s coming in here,” Chadwell said.