Quick set: Say hello to the American Athletic Conference

News today that the Big East splinter faction that will not be keeping the Big East name, the schools that sponsor football as opposed to the ‘Catholic 7’ basketball schools (and schools they’ve since added — Creighton, Butler and Marquette), will be called the American Athletic Conference. It’s not any sillier of a name than “Conference USA” and I think they made a good call not putting a number in the name (briefly, “America 12” was thought to be the name, and that just….no).

I don’t want to write too much now, since I plan to do conference-by-conference previews later this fall, but now that the league finally has a name for itself and appears to have taken shape, it’s worth a look. What will the American Athletic Conference bring us in college volleyball?

Here are the 10 members for 2013:

Central Florida
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Houston
Louisville
Memphis
Rutgers
South Florida
Southern Methodist
Temple

Just as in the old Big East, the clear class of the field is Louisville. And I really don’t think they’d be too challenged. They depart for the ACC effective in 2014, as do Rutgers for the Big Ten, at which time the league will look like this:

Central Florida
Cincinnati
Connecticut
East Carolina
Houston
Memphis
South Florida
Southern Methodist
Temple
Tulane
Tulsa

Yeesh.

I know volleyball played zero part in all of this (it’s King Football, and absolutely nothing else), but holy crap is that going to be a weak volleyball conference when Louisville leave. The best team is probably Tulsa, though I know there’s some buzz surrounding Houston as well. Aaaaand that about says it, doesn’t it?

One-bid league for the foreseeable future. The old Big East was never a bastion of volleyball, but Louisville, Marquette, and Notre Dame were (and, of course, still are) respectable programs. I imagine Louisville might still schedule the other two as non-conference matches. But, especially after next year (or whenever Louisville leave….there’s been some speculation they might get out sooner) there’s gonna be some misleading records coming out of this conference. A lot of bad teams beating up on bad teams to end up 14-14 or something.

Whereas the old Big East at least had a certain name power with it, and a few decent programs (and again, the new Big East still will, to an extent), this league is gonna have all the esteem in volleyball of the Summit League or the Northeast Conference. I know “east” and “volleyball” never really go together, but it seems all too open-and-shut that the game will never really be grown at these schools. And I think that’s really too bad.