After the Apple Cup was cancelled, UW’s AD, Jen Cohen, began looking for an opponent.
She found one in SDSU,whose game with Fresno State had been cancelled. The schools signed a contract, with the understanding that their was a possibility the Utah/ASU might be cancelled and conference rule would pair UW and Utah.
That’s what happened.
Then USC backed out of its game with CU. The SDSU contract with UW was simply changed to a contract with CU. The details of the contract remained the same; only the names were changed. It was all done in a matter of hours.
The AD’s first contact was to BYU. There was initial interest but the BYU circled back and said they wanted to wait before proceeding. There was also concern about the conference policy of being able to cancel until Thursday.
Cohen said she couldn’t wait until the release of the CFP rankings, on Tuesday, and moved on from further discussion with BYU.