AAC power rankings: UCF still the favorite
New recruits are on campus. Position battles have been settled, by and large. New coaches have acclimated themselves to their new surroundings.
Football is almost here. In celebration, USA TODAY Sports will spend the remaining weeks until late August breaking down the power rankings in each conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Next up is the American Athletic Conference. Memphis, South Florida and Houston are chasing Central Florida, the preseason favorite in the AAC even as the Knights move from Scott Frost to a new head coach in Josh Heupel.
1. Central Florida: The question shouldn’t be whether UCF is the league’s best team — on paper that’s almost certainly true — but whether the Knights can make a return trip to a New Year’s Six bowl. Let’s wait until September to make that call. For now, the combination of McKenzie Milton, a talented cast of skill players and the most experienced roster in the conference makes UCF an easy pick to repeat atop the AAC.
2. Memphis: Seems likely to fill the daunting hole left by quarterback Riley Ferguson with another Power Five transfer in Brady White, the favorite to nab the starting role heading into fall camp. It’s not fair to expect White to match Ferguson’s production, especially as the Tigers retool at receiver. Yet there’s enough talent surrounding the position for the Tigers to remain among the most prolific scoring teams in the Power Five and maintain their hold atop the conference’s West Division.
3. South Florida: Look for Charlie Strong’s second team to burst out of the gate and crack the Top 25 heading into the end of October. The schedule is that kind: USF draws both Georgia Tech and Illinois at home while opening AAC play with East Carolina, Tulsa and Connecticut. Winning seven in a row to start seems like a possibility. Where the Bulls go from there is slightly less certain. You have to like the direction of the program and the expected growth on defense, but USF is headed for a major rebuild on the offensive side of the ball.
4. Houston: Any team with Ed Oliver in the middle is going to be dangerous. Oliver, a junior defensive tackle, may very well be the finest player in all of college football. Look for the Cougars to at least match last year’s seven-win total during the regular season and threaten Memphis atop the West. Is that selling Houston short? It might be, especially if quarterback D'Eriq King picks up where he left off last season and meshes with new offensive coordinator Kendall Briles.
5. Navy: A lock for the postseason, as the Midshipmen always are, and one of the more intriguing teams in the AAC due to the potential of new quarterback Malcolm Perry, who made three starts at the position last year. If teamed with an even a slightly improved defense, Perry could mean the difference between winning and losing those singlepossession setbacks that defined the second half of last season. And if the defense is markedly improved, Navy may have what it takes to win the West.
6. Temple: Coach Geoff Collins thinks his team is close to breaking through after winning four of its last five games to end the 2017 season. It’s hard to argue that Temple isn’t set to add at least one more win to last year’s regular-season total. But the East has a clear front-runner in UCF and a solid likely runner-up in USF, so the Owls might need another year before taking the step to a division title.
Sonny Dykes is a very good fit for SMU as the program moves forward from the Chad Morris era. Morris left Dykes several nice pieces and exponentially increased depth compared to the state of the program just four summers ago. Look for Dykes to keep things rolling, relatively speaking, by getting the Mustangs back into the postseason and keeping this offense among the league’s best. I wouldn’t expect
7. SMU:
more than seven wins, however.
8. Tulane: The Green Wave are set to pop under Willie Fritz, who is too good a coach to oversee three seasons in a row among the bottom half of the AAC. The good news? Tulane will be firmly entrenched in Fritz’s offensive scheme. The bad news? The schedule is as difficult as you’ll find on the Group of Five level. Look for Fritz to combine those two factors and get the Green Wave into the postseason, if only by a hair.
9. Tulsa: The team is enigmatic as ever, which is fun for casual viewers but the cause of agita and heartburn for the Golden Hurricane’s fan base. This season could find Tulsa rebounding after a dreadful 2017 and factoring into the West division chase during the second half of the year. It could also find Tulsa again limping to the finish, which would very well mean the end of Philip Montgomery’s tenure with the program. Every single piece of the puzzle, on both offense and defense, must improve for the Golden Hurricane to be more than an AAC punchline.
10. Cincinnati: Luke Fickell gets a bit of a pass for a disappointing 2017, seeing that it was his first real taste of running a program and the state of affairs for the Bearcats coming off the Tommy Tuberville era. But make no mistake: Cincinnati should not and does not accept four-win seasons, so there’s some pressure on the staff to deliver in 2018. There’s also enough returning contributors, many now seniors, to expect somewhere around six or seven wins should the Bearcats find a way to create more explosive plays on defense.
11. East Carolina: It’s a pretty sad state of affairs for ECU, a proud program humbled by its recent downturn. The road back to bowl play isn’t easy. At the same time, there’s little we’ve seen from the current staff to have any major sense of optimism heading into September. Could ECU surprise? Maybe. But based on the Pirates’ level of play the past two seasons, it’s fair to expect another year around three or four wins.
12. Connecticut: The process continues for Randy Edsall and the Huskies. Don’t expect any miracles but do look for signs that UConn is headed back into annual bowl contention. For example: better tackling, better run defense, a more coherent offensive scheme and fewer on-field meltdowns on both sides of the ball. Progress will be evident even if the wins remain elusive.