The youth of American Athletic Conference is such that it tends to be thought of in a very poor light. So much so, that as soon as the Big East folded into a basketball only conference of all the private schools of the former Big East, that this new conference lost it’s spot in the BCS format.The meaning behind that is basically saying that the AAC is the equivalent of the MAC, the Mountain West Conference, Conference USA, and the Sun Belt. It says that the AAC is not deserving of being called a “power conference,” despite the fact that the Louisville Cardinals, now of the Atlantic Coast Conference, were a top-10 team when the AAC began, and the Cincinnati Bearcats under Brian Kelly made appearances in the AP Top 10.
So, why did the AAC fall to this point, and what will it take to gain back its notoriety?
Obviously, losing teams like the Syracuse Orange, Pittsburgh Panthers, and West Virginia Mountaineers to bigger conferences when conference realignment began did not paint a good picture as to the future of the former Big East. Not to mention it wasn’t even 15 years ago that Miami (FL) and Virginia Tech called themselves Big East members. From there, Louisville and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights headed off to new conferences in more recent years, leaving just a few of the original teams from the former Big East.
These schools that left helped dig the hole that the AAC was in by saying that the conference wasn’t anything special and they were better off leaving. This leaves just Cincinnati, the Connecticut Huskies, and the South Florida Bulls as the only remaining teams of the former Big East, and none of those are historically known for their football teams.
However, these three teams must become the saving grace of this conference to bring it back to its former glory. In order to prove that this conference has notoriety, the teams that have been thrown by the wayside need to be the ones that prove they can play with any team and that the AAC is a great conference. The issue with that: UConn finished last in the conference last season and USF historically finds itself toward the bottom.
This means that the Bearcats must become the true powerhouse of the AAC in order to help build this conference into one that the country can view as a “power conference.” Obviously, there’s a lot of pressure in that statement, but can we expect the AAC to get respect it’s looking for because of one of the newer members who came from C-USA? The answer should be no because if those teams were going to help a big conference, they would have been invited to the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, or Big 12 by now. They still found themselves to be, for the most part, less than stellar teams, up until the UCF run with Blake Bortles two seasons ago. The ‘Cats have been the team that’s brought the most consistency to winning in recent years of those remaining and that’s why they’ll be the team being looked to in order to help bring this conference up.
Should we as fans expect this to happen this year or even next year? The answer has to be an emphatic no, even though the talent on this current Cincinnati squad is phenomenal. It’s not something that can be changed overnight and, ideally, the ‘Cats would be receiving some much needed help from UConn and USF.
However, for the time being the Bearcats must answer the call and be the best team in the AAC, with no doubt in people’s minds. Beating teams like Miami (FL) and BYU, who are both on their schedule for the 2015 season, will certainly open up some eyes to this program. Fans must be patient to see the change where the AAC is looked at in a better light, but the key to that endgame goes through the Queen City.
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