BYU AD Tom Holmoe talks about fb scheduling, replay mess, and more

Just filed for the newspaper a story about how BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe reacted to a San Diego sports radio host's charge that Cougar athletes use racial slurs. That issue wasn't the only topic Holmoe discussed with reporters today. Here's more from the A.D. on the radio rant, football scheduling, the BYU-SDSU football replay controversy, and other stuff: * Holmoe said he is "OK" with the MWC's decision Friday to keep school employees such as BYU's Chad Bunn from working as the "replay communicator" in replay booths at their own schools. However, Holmoe stressed that BYU officials believe Bunn did nothing wrong. The other person in the booth, the technician, has been identified by a San Diego newspaper as Rob Moon, a Provo resident and BYU graduate. Holmoe said Friday's conference call showed that at least six of the MWC's nine member schools had at least one person with an affiliation to the school working in its replay booth. Holmoe said the booth staffers are all hired by the MWC, and that Bunn was picked by the conference the last three years to be its representative at whichever bowl game its crews worked, "meaning that the [MWC] thinks he's the best communicator they have." More comments from Holmoe on the controversy: "Every AD knew that we had local people in the replay box. Every AD knows that, because it was a cost-containing effort. To be able to fly people in — other BCS conferences don't even do that. "They might not be an employee of the athletic department, they might not be an employee of the school, they might not be an alum, and they might not be a fan. But I would say there is going to be a 99 percent chance that it is going to be one of those four. So from my perspective, I knew. If I am going to worry about being trying to not do their job as they are expected to do, then I am crazy. You can't worry about it. I don't worry about officials. I don't worry about line judges in volleyball. Line judges in men's and women's volleyball, in most schools, are students of the school. So it could come down to a game and a conference championship, based on a line call made by a student at your school. So it really comes down to this: do you trust officials? And I do."—————————— More from Holmoe on the replay deal: On whether Bunn was unfairly singled out: "It has been 285 games. I don't think anybody has ever written, one time, about our guy in the box, or anybody else in the box, and have ever named a name [until now]. Chad was the technician, and then he became the communicator. The other thing about it is he is not my employee. Nor is the guy at Vegas, at TCU, or Utah. They are hired by the Mountain West Conference. But I am aware that we are going to have people in that box that are from their community, be it here, New Mexico, Air Force or CSU. I am aware of that. And it doesn't bother me." On whether BYU acknowledges that a mistake was made: "Did that crew make a mistake? Yes. No one from BYU has ever denied that, including our staff. Our conference officials go and do other bowl games, and they bring crews. [Chad Bunn] is the best they have. No one is saying anything about that. So when people are saying ooh, it is clandestine. No, we got the best guy."On the furor emanating from San Diego over the replay blunder:"I think that a lot of people overreacted to it. BYU people, including myself, saw the replay and knew that they made a mistake. I don't think there's any question about it. The Mountain West Conference, who did an interview and researched it, confirmed, there was a mistake. No one is going to doubt that. But six of the nine schools had people in the [replay] boxes. The [MWC] has known, and our people should have known, that you have local people that are in the box for the games."——————————————- The Cougars announced today that they have agreed to play Georgia Tech in a four-game series that begins in 2012. But what about 2011? BYU currently has 10 games scheduled for next year, meaning that there are two openings, maybe three. "We haven't finished [2011] yet," Holmoe said. "When we do, we will announce it. We're close, but close is a relative term....I'm sorry if people are antsy [to find out who BYU will play]." Mendenhall said "it depends on the last couple of games we get scheduled, and how that unfolds," when asked if one of the 2011 opponents will be a team from the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). "There is a very good likelihood that we could play a [FCS] Division I-AA team, because it was so late in the [process] when we made agreements to do this that everybody was tied up," he said. "There is the possibility that other schools' schedules could be altered so we could play all D-I teams. So that's possible. We are looking at that." More on scheduling from Holmoe: On what you are looking for as you go about lining up opponents: "It is exciting. It is an opportunity for our program to get out to places we haven't been, and to go back to places where we have been in the past and enjoyed the experience." On when the 2011 schedule needs to be done: "[It] will get done when it is done. It is the first year, and it is probably the most difficult of all the schedules, because most teams were done [when BYU announced independence]. So what is happening right now is we are trying to see if some teams will come out of scheduled games. And that is difficult. We could finish the thing off tomorrow if we wanted to. But it might not be the best schedule that we could possibly have. We are trying to put together the best schedule we can, for 2011, under the circumstances that we are in."On playing 13 games in years they travel to Hawaii: "There are factors that will determine if we will do that. If we end up traveling thousands and thousands of miles, it might not be in the best interest of this team, in that year, to have to travel so much. Getting the 13th game is just kind of a thing to offset funds. For us, it might be better to not play that 13th game and stay healthy, and not travel around the country as much."