With an new TV deal with ESPN, an independent schedule that features prominent teams from across the nation 74 nationally and regionally televised games over the last seven years, BYU football is in the spotlight. Thanks to a strong national following, a winning tradition, and the Cougars high-profile schedule, the national exposure of BYU football will increase. All 2011 BYU football games will be broadcast on one of the ESPN Networks, with the exception of the home game versus Idaho State, which will be featured on BYUtv.

Beginning this fall, every BYU home football game will be televised to a live national audience on the ESPN family of networks or BYUtv. Additionally, BYU’s national fan base will be able to view same-day rebroadcasts on BYUtv of every home game and any away game to which ESPN has rights through conference agreements with the host team.

"I love the idea of being more visible," said BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall. "It's a national schedule, basically East Coast to West Coast. We're trying to get as many quality opponents from as many parts of the country that we can get to continue to promote our program and generate excitement for the teams we're playing. That's what's fun now, the idea of who you would like to play and develop some natural rivalries and learn about different parts of the country. The chance to have choices like that, I'm excited about it."

Working with ESPN has already helped in scheduling high-profile opponents this season and in the future.

In addition to BYU’s 2011 opponents, the Cougars have scheduled future games with Notre Dame, Texas, Georgia Tech, Boise State, Oregon State, West Virginia, Hawai’i, UCF and Utah, among others.

"Our goal is simply to find the most exposure for BYU football that we possibly can,” said Dave Brown, ESPN's vice president of programming and acquisition. “That's part of our partnership. Whether it comes from promotion, carrying the games, promoting the games and producing the games and giving them a first-class production, we put it out there and provide them with the best possible platforms for exposure that we can — and they take it from there."

DID YOU KNOW ... 

• 87 nationally televised games over the past eight seasons
• 12-straight season-openers on ESPN from 1993-2004
• In 1984, BYU played at Pittsburgh in the first live national college football broadcast on ESPN.
• ESPN also carried BYU's defeat of top-ranked Miami in 1990, a contest that is still the 8th highest-rated regular season college football game on ESPN since that year. The 2009 win over No. 3 Oklahoma was ESPN's 9th highest-rated game of the 2009 regular season. 
• In 2011 BYU will have four games on ESPN (Ole Miss, Central Florida, Utah State, TCU), three games on ESPN2 (Texas, Utah, Hawaii) and three games on the ESPN Networks (San Jose State, New Mexico State, Idaho).