CONFERENCE MAKEOVER
American Athletic Conference football has different look with Navy, new coaches, title game.
Well, folks, it’s that time of year again. On Monday, representatives from the 12 football teams in the American Athletic Conference traveled from as far west as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and as far south as Tampa, Florida, converging upon a convenient and centralized location — or rather, Newport, Rhode Island — for the conference’s annual media days. Commissioner Mike Aresco will address the media this morning, followed by panel discussions and breakout sessions with players and coaches from each team throughout the afternoon.
In honor of the event, and the beginning of preseason practices Thursday, let’s look at some of the most important questions in the conference entering 2015.
1. How will Navy fare in its maiden voyage? (And other bad nautical puns.)
The Midshipmen sailed into the AAC on July 1 after 134 years of football independence, and it will be interesting to see if they can make waves in year one. Navy has a record of 17-20 against the rest of the AAC West, and it has never faced three of its new conference foes: UCF, USF At Cincinnati, senior quarterback Gunner Kiel could make the Bearcats a contender.
and Memphis. Entering those uncharted waters will be a challenge, but it also benefits the Midshipmen in some ways. The rest of the conference will have to prepare for Navy’s unique tripleoption offense, steered by senior quarterback Keenan Reynolds, and those matchups could ultimately determine whether the newcomers sink or swim in 2015. (OK, we’ll stop now.)
2. Can a trio of new coaches have early success?
Three AAC teams hired new coaches last winter, all of them bright offensive minds with no head coaching experience. SMU’s Chad Morris and Tulsa’s Philip Montgomery previously served as offensive coordinators at Clemson and Baylor, respectively, while new Houston head coach Tom Herman won a national championship last year at Ohio State.
Of that group, Herman, who coached the Buckeyes’ quarterbacks, probably has the best opportunity for immediate success. He inherits a Cougars team that finished 8-5 last season and returns bruising senior running back Kenneth Farrow, among other core pieces. Tulsa (2-10 in 2014) and SMU (1-11) will face more of an uphill battle.
3. How will the new divisions impact the conference landscape?
With the addition of Navy in 2015, the AAC will split into two divisions — East and West — with a new conference title game in December to decide an outright champion. Memphis is in the West. The divisions are split geographically except Navy, which is in the West despite its Maryland home, and recent history says the East is the tougher of the two. East teams went a combined 38-37 last year and have a .532 winning percentage since 2010, while West teams went 32-43 in 2014 and have a .470 winning percentage in the same fiveyear span. Will that end up mattering?
Who knows? But because the championship game is a matchup of the top team from each division, and not the top two overall records, it certainly could make a difference.
4. Will Cincinnati live up to lofty expectations?
When the AAC preseason media poll is revealed today, Cincinnati will probably be at, or near, the top of the list. The Bearcats were preseason favorites last year and lived up to that hype, finishing in a three-way tie atop the conference with Memphis and UCF. Will this year be more of the same? With senior quarterback Gunner Kiel and a long list of offensive playmakers back in the fold, it’s a relatively safe bet, though back-to-back games against Miami and BYU could cause problems.
5. Is the 2015 season a Big 12 audition?
Until the Big 12 lives up to its name and actually houses 12 teams, there will always be speculation about who, if anyone, is next in line to join the conference.
It’s unclear when such expansion will occur, but it seems likely that it will happen at one point or another, unless the NCAA scraps a rule preventing conferences with fewer than 12 teams from having a conference title game.
Given the current landscape, the Big 12 would probably look closely at the AAC if or when it decides to expand, putting additional pressure on those programs — particularly football and basketball — in the meantime.
Does that make 2015 a make-or-break season for teams like Cincinnati, Houston and Memphis? No.
But it does make the upcoming season pretty darn important.
Positioning oneself as a football powerhouse now could pay big dividends down the road.