Step aside East Carolina, this is still Cincinnati‘s league.
ECU’s trajectory for the 2014 season has risen extensively after it upset two ACC Coastal Division foes, Virginia Tech and North Carolina, who both appeared (before the Pirates raided their villages) to be legitimate contenders in their respective Power 5 conferences.
Quarterback Shane Carden and the rest of his Pirate crew went from un-ranked at season’s start, to media darlings with a criminally good offense, and current torch carrier for the Group of Five conferences and the automatic New Year’s six bowl bids.
Questioning if ECU will win its next four games is laughable at this point (SMU, at South Florida, UConn, at Temple), unless the Owls proves they are more than a 6-6 bowl team, but an actual American Athletic Conference title contender in the upcoming weeks.
But following the Pirates’ sail through Philadelphia, they meet a particular group of Bearcats in Southwest Ohio; thirsty for attention and eager to reclaim the spotlight once fixated on them for several years as members of the Big East conference that preceded the AAC.
Cincinnati is the ninth-most winningest football program (66-25) since 2007 – ahead of traditional heavyweights Michigan and Georgia, and barely behind USC and LSU.
Connecting the lineage of the old Big East with the current setup of the new AAC, the Bearcats have won or shared four Big East/AAC championships since 2008; more than the other members predating the AAC — UConn, South Florida, and Temple. To add another feather to Cincy’s hat of success, the Bearcats own five conference championships dating back to their days in Conference USA, more than double the amount of championships won by the other eight former C-USA members that represent the AAC.
To the Cincinnati faithful, the AAC is still Bearcat country until proven otherwise.
However, glory from yesterday can only live in memories; it doesn’t dictate the current hierarchy of a conference. Texas played for a national championship as recently as 2010. Now the Longhorns are trying to claw back towards the middle of a conference they consistently won not long ago.
ECU, like UCF in 2013, is striving to show that one of the AAC’s new kids and former C-USAers can take the mantle as the AAC’s top contender and, with gargantuan help from voters and highly ranked teams dropping like flies, break through the national scene.
There’s just a single issue stained on the Pirates’ cape: they have an “L” in the loss column.
As of today, Cincinnati has its goose egg in the L-side intact.
That’s why midst ECU’s offensive circus that infiltrated Virginia Tech’s historically vaunted defense and shredded its in-state rival from Chapel Hill to the tune of 789 yards, the Bearcats are still the AAC’s best, albeit unlikely, shot at making the first four-team College Football Playoff.
Those associated with teams outside the Power 5 (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC), know the only avenue for a Group of Five conference member to reach the elusive new playoff is to go undefeated, look great doing so, and defeat a few Power 5 teams along the way.
According to the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI), a ranking system that measures various statistics including strength of schedule and offensive and defensive efficiency, ECU is favored to finish 11-1.
Even if the Pirates notch 11 victories, which would include two Power 5 wins and a win over a potentially ranked Cincinnati, their lone defeat to South Carolina seals a top-10 finish as the pinnacle for success.
The Bearcats, on the other hand, have the same opportunity to win two games against Power 5 competition (Saturday at Ohio State and October 11t at Miami-Fla.), and also beat a ranked AAC rival in ECU. But Cincinnati can still finish unscathed; ECU will always have a blemish next to its win total.
2014 shouldn’t be about making the inaugural College Football Playoff if you’re Cincinnati or the AAC. The Bearcats represent the best opportunity out of AAC’s 11 members to crash the Power 5’s four team party, but they, along with ECU, have the chance to impact the season on a greater, more realistic, level.
By accumulating wins, the Bearcats and Pirates can add a few more blocks to the wall of respect for the AAC that UCF started last season when it defeated Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl.
AAC commissioner Mike Aresco confidently raved about his league’s potential during an interview at the Navy, Rutgers game last Saturday.
“Give us two to three years and I guarantee we’ll be one of the premier football conferences in the country, on par with the Power Five,” Aresco said. “Winning solves a lot of things. We have to win games and we have to impress the media…football in this conference is a work in progress, but we are going to eventually make our mark.”
For Aresco’s optimistic words to gain validity, Cincinnati and ECU must continue climbing the ladder, and the Bearcats need to follow the Pirates’ lead and knock off a couple Power 5 foes of their own.
A 12-0 Cincinnati probably gets left out of the College Football Playoff. Big Ten contender Nebraska, whose remaining strength of schedule, according to the ESPN FPI, is ranked a mere four spots ahead of Cincinnati, stands a better chance at inclusion in the new playoff with an 11-1 record than an undefeated AAC champion Bearcats team.
Both teams could have common wins over Miami (Fla.) and, potentially, Ohio State (Nebraska could face the Buckeyes in the Big Ten title game), but the Cornhuskers wrapped in Power 5 garments and adorning a name among college football royalty would be viewed more favorably for the playoff than an unblemished conference champion from the “lowly” Group of Five.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=615oKZeIs4o?list=UU0y5liiwMlVZRPpHANy5ROA]Nebraska wasn’t handed the distinction of traditional college football powerhouse by sheer luck; winning over 800 games and 46 conference titles earned its spot.
For the AAC to garner more respect from a national audience and in the eyes of the playoff selection committee, the AAC must breed consistent winners that crack the barrier between the Group of Five and Power 5 conferences by defeating the teams the NCAA and the media have placed in the “power” conferences.
Common sense says an undefeated AAC champion shines brighter than a one-loss champion. Although, let’s keep our Pirate hats on until the big Cincy-ECU showdown on Nov. 13.
Of course, the Bearcats have some Buckeyes to split in Columbus, OH, on Saturday before an undefeated AAC championship run can materialize.
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