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American Athletic Conference football

Three American Athletic Conference Contenders

The American Athletic Conference is the best of the so-called “Little Five” conferences—the leagues that compete for the one major bowl bid that the big boys will toss them. The American currently has three teams that are still undefeated. They’re the most likely league to get the major bowl spot if everyone in the Little Five has at least one loss. All of that means the winner of this league is likely to grace your television set over New Year’s. Here’s a snapshot look at the three contenders—Central Florida, South Florida & Cincinnati…

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Central Florida: They got the New Year’s Six bid last year and then beat Auburn to cap an undefeated season and make clear they should have been in the Playoff. The Knights had to replace coaches, as Scott Frost went to Nebraska and Josh Heupel took over.

Frost was a former national championship winning quarterback (1997 Nebraska), as is Heupel (2000 Oklahoma), but the most important quarterback is McKenzie Milton. Milton finished eighth in last year’s Hesiman voting and is a classic dual-threat QB. Another player to keep an eye on is Gabriel Davis, Milton’s favorite target.

Milton completes a high percentage of his passes, stretches the field and is the team’s second-best rusher. UCF has a blowout win of Lane Kiffin’s Florida Atlantic and plays a notable game on Saturday at home against Pitt.

South Florida: Charlie Strong is getting his coaching career back rolling after the ill-fated stretch at Texas. The Bulls rely on a senior transfer at quarterback. Blake Barnett is on his third team, having left Alabama and Arizona State. So far he’s playing well and has a well-balanced corps of receivers.

Tyree McCants leads the team in catches and works the short-yardage game. Randall St. Felix and Darrell Saloman can stretch the field. South Florida’s also got playmakers in the defensive front seven with tackle Kevin Kegler and linebacker Nico Sawtell.

South Florida has knocked off Illinois and Georgia Tech, although having to escape the Illini 25-19 isn’t necessarily a good thing, power conference opponent or not. The Bulls also opened league play with a tight 20-13 win over East Carolina, another program on difficult times.

Cincinnati: Luke Fickell, the man who stood in as Ohio State’s interim coach in 2011, in between Jim Tressel’s firing and Urban Meyer’s arrival, is in his second year at Cincy. Last year was a tough 4-8 campaign, the same as in the final year of Tommy Tuberville’s tenure. But the Bearcats are off and rolling this season.

Cincinnati is the run-oriented tea m among these three contenders. Quarterback Desmond Ridder has only thrown 74 passes in the four games. The Bearcats like to give the football to Michael Warren II, who is averaging over 100 yards-per-game. This is another team with defensive playmakers, notably senior defensive tackle Cortez Broughton.

Cincy tried to challenge itself in non-conference play and played UCLA and Ohio. It’s debatable how good those wins look right now, although the Bobcats could turn it around in MAC play and make that victory shine a little brighter.

The schedule is ideally suited to build drama among these three teams. All three are in the American’s East Division, so there will be head-to-head matchups. And they come on the final three weeks of the season. November 10 is South Florida-Cincinnati, then the Bearcats play Central Florida on November 17. Six days later, on Black Friday, UCF and South Florida meet. Between now and then, it’s about consistency and getting yourself in position.

Central Florida is the team that’s ranked, but it’s just really tough to go undefeated two years in a row. Even Alabama doesn’t pull it off and the odds of college kids stumbling somewhere in a spot they shouldn’t is just very high. And in a league where offenses have free rein, I’m looking for a team that has the one or two defensive playmakers necessary to slow someone down just enough to win a shootout.

That’s why I lean Cincinnati. They have the defensive playmakers and their ability to run the football can take other offenses out of the comfort zone. If they win this league with a record no worse than 12-1, they’ll be on the New Year’s stage for the first time since Brian Kelly was here back in 2009.

College Football Coverage: American Athletic Conference Preview

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It’s a big year of transition for the conference we used to know as the Big East. It’s now re-named the American Athletic Conference, a consequence of the split that took place between the football schools and the basketball-only members. Since the latter created and built the league’s brand, they will carry its name into the new era. As for football…we might have a fresh name and some fresh faces, but it will still be a year where an old era passes away.

Louisville and Rutgers played for the conference title in 2012, but both are on their way out. Louisville is going to the ACC, and Rutgers to the Big Ten. It was joked that when their game was played in late November it should have been nicknamed “The Big Ten-ACC Challenge” in light of the basketball series those two conferences play at that same time of year.

There’s also four new teams arriving to help begin the new era in 2014. Central Florida, SMU, Houston and Memphis came over from Conference USA.


In short, it’s an ever-changing world, and this year is also the last season for something else—an automatic slot in a BCS bowl game. The Five Families of college football (Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Pac-12 & Big 12) have had the American Athletic Conference whacked when it comes to divvying up spots in the major bowls next season, when the new four-team playoff takes effect.

TheSportsNotebook has divvied up its college football coverage of this league into two parts, both at the links below. In the first section, we look at the six teams who were in this conference a year ago, headlined by Louisville, and including Rutgers, Cincinnati, South Florida, UConn and Temple. The conference champion is going to come out of this group, and I have no reason to contest the consensus view that it will be Louisville.

Then there’s the fortunes of the four C-USA arrivals. While none are going to win the conference championship, all four have a shot to be competitive right away and start accessing this league’s bowl slots.

The real on-field question though, is simply this—can Louisville translate a presumed American Athletic Conference title into an undefeated season and a spot in the BCS National Championship Game. TheSportsNotebook will offer its official answer to that question in next week’s final preseason predictions, but for the answer is likely no. The schedule isn’t good enough and that problem is ultimately what’s caused all the chaos for this conference, whatever name it’s under, over the years.

The Last Hurrah For The Old Big East
Four New Arrivals From C-USA