CORVALLIS, Ore. — In an impromptu press conference before the BYU-Oregon State football game, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe spoke to members of the media about conference issues.
It’s almost as if conferences and universities have been playing hot potato with each other as there have been schools leaving and joining and conferences realigning for several months – and it doesn’t seem that’s going to stop anytime soon.
Holmoe said BYU has been closely monitoring all that has been going on in the college football landscape.
There has been a lot of drama and speculation going on with the Big 12 this season, and TCU recently announced it would join them as their 10th member. BYU has been mentioned in the talk, and Holmoe said he believed TCU’s announcement meant it was a good time to clear some things up.
“First of all I think we can say that a question that has come up is, ‘Were we invited into the Big 12 conference?’ The answer to that is no we have not been invited to the Big 12 conference,” he said. “I think that a question that would follow after that would be because some people have stated it out there that we rejected an offer to the Big 12 conference and I think obviously if you haven’t received an offer to join that you can’t really reject that offer. I think that that goes without saying.”
When asked if BYU would accept an offer to the Big 12 or if the school would have a better chance if it were already in a BCS conference, Holmoe said he couldn’t say because these types of questions are “speculation.”
Holmoe said certain business needs to be done privately.
“It’s important to have your conversations and do your business in private because you see what happens if you throw things out there or if things get out they get turned around,” he said. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there right now that is not being dictated by sources that are real or accurate. … And if we take and spend time on issues that are wrong or misinformed then we give credit to misinformation, which we [BYU] refuse to do.”
But Holmoe reminded everyone that whatever decisions are made are done in the best interests of BYU and its players and fans.
“I think it’s important to know that we plan on doing the very best we can for BYU. I think you know we’re pretty competitive … and we have no intentions of not being with the big boys,” Holmoe said. “We want to be able to play at the highest level and we’ve done that for a long time. And I think if you know (head football) coach (Bronco) Mendenhall and you know me, we’re going to do everything we can to put our boys in the best position to be as successful as they can.”
