When we were initially going the whole Indy route (something I have been a staunch supporter of), Mendenhall talked a lot about how the plan was to play ND and the service academies, particularly in November when the schedule is more difficult to fill out, which was a part of why I thought independence scheduling would work out better than it has so far.

After the first year or so of scheduling, the ND deal, which I didn't really love because of all the 2 for 1 action in it, ended up being a play 2 in South Bend and then get nothing back besides the hope that ND would eventually honor its commitment to play in Provo (it still appears to have no intention of doing anytime soon and I wouldn't be surprised if BYU just gets paid out on the agreement...hopefully the liquidated damages clause has a fat payday). As for the service academies, we heard early on that it would take a few years to get those games on the schedule because they set their indy schedules so far out, but it's now been a few years and I still don't see them on our schedule anywhere. I recognize that every movement in conference realignment has basically cut against BYU (ND with the ACC agreement, AF in beleaguered MWC that discourages its teams from scheduling BYU, but I don't understand why Army and Navy haven't gotten put on the schedule. I see Navy and Army playing the likes of South Alabama and Fordham (I live only about ten minutes from there and I had no idea they even had a football team).

Maybe the service academies are resisting because they'd likely end up with an L against BYU and they're always kind of flirting with bowl ineligibility or maybe they figure we'll get snatched up into a P5 conference by the time the games would be played, but you'd think an H-H agreement in November with BYU would be attractive enough to at least one of the three service academies that something would have happened by now. I'd like to see BYU play all three teams in November along with USU every year. I know that TH is doing the best he can and next season's schedule is no slouch, but I'd like to have seen this aspect come to fruition.

If anyone has some insight on why this hasn't happened I'd like to know.