Army and BYU are now Power Five teams, at least in the eyes of the SEC for scheduling purposes.
According to ESPN, the Black Knights and Cougars will join Notre Dame in fulfilling the conference's requirement that all teams play a Power Five opponent during the season.
SEC will now count games vs. independents #BYU, #Army, ND toward its Power 5 nonleague requirement sources told @ESPN
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) March 19, 2015 After settling at 14 teams with the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M, the SEC had the opportunity to stick with its current eight-game conference schedule starting or expanding the conference slate to nine. It chose to stay with eight and mandated that its teams play a Power Five opponent as one of four non-conference games starting in 2016.
Notre Dame was initially included in the Power Five opponents list. Navy, an independent team in 2014, will be a football-only member of the American in 2015.
BYU had fought to be shown the same reverence that Notre Dame has been and has already been considered a Power Five opponent by the ACC for its teams to fullfil a Power Five opponent requirement. By being considered a Power Five team by conferences whose teams are given the obligation, BYU can have an easier time finding games.
The Cougars are on Missouri's schedule in 2015 and 2020, so The Tigers don't have to worry about finding a Power Five team five years from now. The only other non-conference team on Missouri's slate for 2020 is Eastern Michigan.
The Cougars are also scheduled to play LSU in 2017 and gives LSU two "Power Five" opponents with a game against Syracuse slotted a week later. According to ESPN's report, BYU will also play Mississippi State in 2016 and 2017.
According to FBSchedules.com, Army doesn't have any games scheduled against SEC opponents in the future. We're going to guess that will change shortly.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
From Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo Sports - Report: SEC adds BYU and Army as Power Five non-con teams
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