AAC just lost their big 3

[appgrad95&97]

Whatever we do, we'll be in the 2025 version of I-AA. This is what happens when a TV network literally runs a sport.

[bigdaddyg]

So once all of this madness shakes out and there are basically 4 P5 conferences you will see about 1/4 of the schools consistently under .500 (Wake, Duke, Syracuse, Vandy, Kansas, Maryland, Rutgers, and probably half a dozen more). Then about half will hover just over .500 and occasionally a few will pop up and go 9-3 and be in a playoff discussion. Probably 1/4 will be in the real hunt every year. The bottom feeders will have to be content with taking the money and their fans won’t get to enjoy those annual wins over FCS and low level G5’s. Back when we were a dominant FCS program there were several lower P5’s that we could have beaten every year. I’m afraid that we are going to fall back into some semblance of that scenario. If things progress on this track what will be the point of any G5 conference. Our only real shot is to be in a revised version of an AAC which includes a legit opportunity to get into an expanded playoff.

[ASUPATCH]

Per USA Today this morning, this appears to be a done deal. So that leaves us with just one question. AAC or SBC?

[hotrod2001]

I think our win against ECU was an audition. The ? is, do we desire to bite.

I don't know. I think the Sun Belt is a good conference but it's not getting the attention it deserves year-in and year-out. I mean look at how the clowns calling the ECU game treated us? Look at the coverage every time we played a C-USA team over the last few seasons? We're still the inferior conference in their mind regardless of us beating the "bigger" conference team.

Even without Houston and UCF, the AAC still has credence with Memphis, SMU, Navy and Temple in their ranks. If you brought up Marshal, App, Louisiana and/or Coastal in to fill the void, you'd have a solid P6. And in honesty, that's the NY6 conference, we know the bias is there when it comes to tv, politics and NCAA decision making.

[johns1124]

Marshall and Southern Miss have good history and would fit culturally with the Sunbelt, but I don't think those are the additions that would actually boost the conference. There's reasons why those 2 were left behind by the other CUSA 2.0 teams that went onto the AAC. Marshall wasn't even a competitive factor in CUSA until the year that UCF, Houston, Memphis, and SMU left.

From CUSA you're much better off pursuit UAB. From the AAC, it's Memphis and USF. Though the AAC teams would try to pull teams to them first I'd think.

This has been whirlwind period as a UCF fan between the win over Boise and now the smoke for our move to the Big 12 being all but officially announced by the school and conference. I still remember the excitement of the Big East announcement only to see the last bit of it fall apart with the Catholic 7 splitting off the form the new Big East, Louisville and Rutgers getting the last ships out, and Boise and SDSU backing out of the deal.

Exactly, The reason why Marshall was left behind was Media. Look who they took Tulane, SMU, Houston, Memphis, and UCF. Common denominator mass markets.

The years you are talking about being "Non-competitive" were the Mark Snyder years. A record of .373, arguably the worst coach to coach the kelly green.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M ... ll_coaches

Now if the AAC, can get App. State, MU, and lure Boise away. That might be a nice conference. I will admit I'm not sure how you feel about traveling as far as Idaho every two years or so.

[Captain Morgan]

I'm ready to see some ideas on a new conference with the strongest teams let from the Sun Belt, AAC, and whoever else would fit. Would like to see teams from Texas and Florida some schools from the Michigan/Ohio footprint, and ideally some of our regional schools schools (Coastal, ECU, Marshall, Liberty, maybe UNCC). It would be the best G5 conference pretty much by default.

[J_Mountaineers]

Per USA Today this morning, this appears to be a done deal. So that leaves us with just one question. AAC or SBC?

In reality, AAC opponents would put more butts in seats and whether or not the AAC is actually a better conference is debatable BUT to the people who make the rankings, TV structures etc, they are. And that’s all that really matters.

[appstate77]

Id like to see the Big 12 and some iteration of the AAC counter the Autonomy conferences with 2 superconferences, with App somewhere in the mix.

[t4pizza]

Without those schools in the AAC, it isn't the same conference in either tv dollars or perception of dominant teams. Truth is the current Sun Belt would be a much better conference than what remained of the AAC. I know historically the Sun Belt did not get recognition but that is not the case anymore, heck the Sun Belt is the ONLY G5 conference with 2 top 25 teams in the preseason poll. Our best bet would be to stay in the Sun Belt (if Louisiana and Coastal agree) and poach a couple teams from the AAC or other conferences. I honestly only see Memphis as a true football program in what remains of the AAC, yeah SMU finally has a pulse and Navy gets respect because of what those young men mean to our county but Temple is usually not good and Tulsa just lost to a FCS school. The Sun Belt is up and coming and with those 3 leaving the AAC, the Sun Belt will be the best G5 conference if we keep our teams and it could be even better if we add a couple like Memphis.

[AppStateMtneer]

In 1-2 years SMU and Memphis are very likely to be gone from AAC joining their friends in the B12… best for us is Marshall + ECU to SBC with us and we would be set

[appdaze]

What I would love to see as a conference:

Current independents: 3
Army
Uconn--loong football/great basketball history
Umass--long football/good basketball history

AAC: 8
Navy
Memphis
SMU
ECU
USF
Temple
Tulane
Tulsa

Sunbelt: 2
App
Louisiana

MAC: 1
Miami of Ohio----long football/basketball history

Cusa: 2
Charlotte-----yes naysayers, it would be worth it in the long run.
FIU--58k student body--one of the top 10 largest universities in the US.


That is a 16 team conference that would excel in more sports than just football. Its a good footprint for recruiting for all involved. Great chance for TV deals. Travel would not be a back breaker. I think its a group that could stick together for a long time and earn a place at the table.

You could probably sub a tulse or tulane for something but its still a great conference in my eyes.

[citroknight]

Marshall and Southern Miss have good history and would fit culturally with the Sunbelt, but I don't think those are the additions that would actually boost the conference. There's reasons why those 2 were left behind by the other CUSA 2.0 teams that went onto the AAC. Marshall wasn't even a competitive factor in CUSA until the year that UCF, Houston, Memphis, and SMU left.

From CUSA you're much better off pursuit UAB. From the AAC, it's Memphis and USF. Though the AAC teams would try to pull teams to them first I'd think.

This has been whirlwind period as a UCF fan between the win over Boise and now the smoke for our move to the Big 12 being all but officially announced by the school and conference. I still remember the excitement of the Big East announcement only to see the last bit of it fall apart with the Catholic 7 splitting off the form the new Big East, Louisville and Rutgers getting the last ships out, and Boise and SDSU backing out of the deal.

Exactly, The reason why Marshall was left behind was Media. Look who they took Tulane, SMU, Houston, Memphis, and UCF. Common denominator mass markets.

The years you are talking about being "Non-competitive" were the Mark Snyder years. A record of .373, arguably the worst coach to coach the kelly green.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M ... ll_coaches

Now if the AAC, can get App. State, MU, and lure Boise away. That might be a nice conference. I will admit I'm not sure how you feel about traveling as far as Idaho every two years or so.

Snyder hurt them but Doc Holiday wasn't really much better when the conference was fully together either. He was the coach for the last 3 years of a fully put together CUSA 2.0 and marshall had 5, 7, and 5 wins. Suddenly he jumps up to 10 wins and a CUSA east title once the first wave of teams left to the AAC.

They could still get something going by targeting the right CUSA and SBC schools. Boise isn't an option. The AAC at peak strength couldn't get Boise to come over, no way they come without the top 3 teams still there.

[MAD Doctor]

Just another domino and now it’s the AAC’s turn. No use pretending the SBC today will be the SBC of tomorrow. It’s 2010 again and Doug needs to do better than Charlie did back then. Now is the perfect time for a sensible regional conference, but pride will get in the way and it will be cut throat.

[Bootsy]

A lot of people don't like Aresco but you have to appreciate how hard he works. He does his job and does it well. I wish we could say the same for Gill...bless his heart, the guy is basically invisible.

If the AAC comes calling, we go and don't look back. At least with Aresco you have a Commish that's working for you...not to mention dude is also well-connected with people that matter (read: ESPN)

[AppStFan1]

Looking at it further-these are the remaining 8:

ECU
Memphis
Navy
SMU
Temple
Tulane
Tulsa
USF

There’s very little in that conference that excites me more than in the Sun Belt. ECU and Marshall are old rivals, and Memphis is traditionally a good football team, but outside of those 3, the other 5 are garbage. Now, if the AAC brings in 4-6 schools with 3 being close by, maybe I’d be ok with it.

If the Belt is proactive, they could sway ECU, USF, Marshall to join and enhance their product while effectively killing the AAC. That would give the Belt a legitimate claim, along with the MWC, to being the new “P6” - the strongest of the others.

Will be an interesting couple of weeks/months.

I agree this will be interesting. I feel like there are a lot of directions this could go. Maybe if UAB, App, Louisiana, and Marshall all join the AAC with Navy staying and maybe add Army or something that might be a good choice. Wherever we go we need to be with a few football powers that make it a really good second tier conference. The new Big 12 is basically going to have about 3 schools that have always been in that power 5 caliber, so to speak, with teams like Cincy, Houston, BYU, UCF, and TCU all being schools that were "pulled up".

[hotrod2001]

Without those schools in the AAC, it isn't the same conference in either tv dollars or perception of dominant teams. Truth is the current Sun Belt would be a much better conference than what remained of the AAC. I know historically the Sun Belt did not get recognition but that is not the case anymore, heck the Sun Belt is the ONLY G5 conference with 2 top 25 teams in the preseason poll. Our best bet would be to stay in the Sun Belt (if Louisiana and Coastal agree) and poach a couple teams from the AAC or other conferences. I honestly only see Memphis as a true football program in what remains of the AAC, yeah SMU finally has a pulse and Navy gets respect because of what those young men mean to our county but Temple is usually not good and Tulsa just lost to a FCS school. The Sun Belt is up and coming and with those 3 leaving the AAC, the Sun Belt will be the best G5 conference if we keep our teams and it could be even better if we add a couple like Memphis.

I truly believe the Sun Belt's biggest problem is it's tv exposure. The other four G5 conferences get way more exposure on everything from SportsCenter to Satellite Radio. (Thankfuly some of the SiriusXM shows are beginning to talk about the conference more but it's still nowhere near the area CUSA and AAC are getting). The pieces are in place, the teams have stepped up, the conference office has stepped up, they've rebranded themselves and are flaunting our achievements but that name recognition just isn't there. As I mentioned above it's obvious the people calling the games look down on our conference teams unless its a calling team based out of Alabama or Louisiana, they aren't giving us that clout.

If ESPN Gameday talked about our top five teams the same way they talk about CUSA's midpack teams, I think you'd see the value of the conference overall start to improve. I don't understand why we still have that stigma. App, Coastal, Troy, GaSo, Louisana, GaState have proven over the last several years that we're better than pretty much every other conference except the AAC, and with them losing Cincy and UCF, you might could make an argument that we could go toe-to-toe with any of their teams too if they bothered to schedule us. So I dunno, I like where the Belt is but you can't not say the AAC has better favor with the gatekeepers.

[NavyApp]

Maybe the Sun Belt should go after Aresco.

[hotrod2001]

I did like our mention in this SI article from Friday:

"In the meantime, will the AAC have a response to losing three of its richest members? A wave of realignment is now likely to hit the Group of 5 ranks. Some feel as if Conference USA is ripe for the plucking by the American. The Sun Belt also could try to make a power play to usurp the AAC as the country’s top G5 league. Meanwhile, the Mountain West Conference could emerge as a G5 winner if it keeps its membership intact."

Ten years ago, if anybody suggested that the SB could make a powerplay to overtake the AAC as the top G5, you'd be laughed off the message board. But I guess if ESPN nulls their TV contract with the AAC and Gill is able to peel away a few CUSA and AAC teams into the fold and renegotiate a more lucrative tv contract. Maybe, just maybe it could happen. That's a lot of stars to align though. I can see us plucking CUSA but an AAC team would have to come to us out of financial necessity I'd think.


https://www.si.com/college/2021/09/03/b ... cincinnati

[AppSt94]

So if I was a in a position power at APP, (Everts, and Gillian, etc). This is my thought process. We know who the 8 AAC teams left. Questions to be asked. Who do they bring in with us? What does revenue share look like? What are the annual budgets and coaches salaries across the entire look like. Once we have that information, or a relative understanding of this, then you weight your options. Can we generate the funds to keep up? Another aspect that I would need to know is what does a restructured TV contract look like. Do we have more, the same, or no more weeknight games? After gathering the facts, these are the things that would I would need to in order to make the best decisions for App. Like it or not fellas, the cold hard truth is that we don’t have the funds to compete in the current AAC. We may not have the funds to compete in a revamped AAC. It sucks, but that’s the reality.

[APPdiesel]

The question is do we need to be in the AAC to reach the playoff? TBD playoff expansion changes everything. Same reason why Clemson doesn’t need to be in the SEC or Big10. They can reach the playoff right where they are.