The best football programs in this league currently are Cincinnati, UCF, and ECU. Houston, UConn, and USF are next in line at the moment. Tulsa, Memphis, Navy, Temple, SMU, and Tulane all have the potential to have good teams but are half step behind the other six in terms of national perception.

Looking a wins and losses plus attendance should give you a good idea who the best programs in this league are. I know UConn and USF have had some down years but those schools competed fairly well in a BCS conference and had a boatload of fans when compared to our western members. Tulsa had some good seasons but every other indicator for that program is more a negative than a plus. I hope they continue to overcome some of those obstacles and perform on the field. Everyone else outside of Navy can be classified as unrealized potential.

(05-29-2014 03:59 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Hard to make an argument for ucf = Houston too. We have more championships while in the same league and better head to head. I think he is stretching to say the west is as good as the east. That is why I want to move Cincy west and Tulane east.

You had the same amount of CUSA championships we did lets pump the brakes a little there......

You have the one AAC championship. So scoreboard there but let’s readdress that in a few years to see who pulls ahead.

If you want to go season by season we are up some years and you are up others. In 2013 it was your year hands down but let’s not confuse one year with everyone else just playing for second place.

(05-29-2014 03:59 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Hard to make an argument for ucf = Houston too. We have more championships while in the same league and better head to head. I think he is stretching to say the west is as good as the east. That is why I want to move Cincy west and Tulane east.

remove last year, you beat 1 top 25 team in school history, and it happened to be houston. lets not get carried away with last season

head to head match up is irrelevant in deciding overall strength, cincy has a bad to head to head match up vs the majority of the league. that doesnt change anything
we lost but its more telling that we were favored in the vast majority of those games. oleary knowing how to handle spread teams isnt a factor in overall program strength

(05-29-2014 04:04 PM)bearcatlawjd Wrote:  The best football programs in this league currently are Cincinnati, UCF, and ECU. Houston, UConn, and USF are next in line at the moment. Tulsa, Memphis, Navy, Temple, SMU, and Tulane all have the potential to have good teams but are half step behind the other six in terms of national perception.

Looking a wins and losses plus attendance should give you a good idea who the best programs in this league are. I know UConn and USF have had some down years but those schools competed fairly well in a BCS conference and had a boatload of fans when compared to our western members. Tulsa had some good seasons but every other indicator for that program is more a negative than a plus. I hope they continue to overcome some of those obstacles and perform on the field. Everyone else outside of Navy can be classified as unrealized potential.

currently and historically and recently that statement is wrong

(05-29-2014 04:07 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 03:59 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Hard to make an argument for ucf = Houston too. We have more championships while in the same league and better head to head. I think he is stretching to say the west is as good as the east. That is why I want to move Cincy west and Tulane east.

remove last year, you beat 1 top 25 team in school history, and it happened to be houston. lets not get carried away with last season

head to head match up is irrelevant in deciding overall strength, cincy has a bad to head to head match up vs the majority of the league. that doesnt change anything
we lost but its more telling that we were favored in the vast majority of those games. oleary knowing how to handle spread teams isnt a factor in overall program strength

Why are we supposed to remove last year?

(05-29-2014 04:09 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:04 PM)bearcatlawjd Wrote:  The best football programs in this league currently are Cincinnati, UCF, and ECU. Houston, UConn, and USF are next in line at the moment. Tulsa, Memphis, Navy, Temple, SMU, and Tulane all have the potential to have good teams but are half step behind the other six in terms of national perception.

currently and historically and recently that statement is wrong

I would include UH (go figure...) but other than UCF being "new money" I would have to agree with him. That said until someone knocks UCF off the mountain they deserve to be in the top tier.

(05-29-2014 04:13 PM)fade2blac Wrote:  Why are we supposed to remove last year?

Because they are referring to an overall and historical context. One year (as aweome as it was I grant you) does not create a historical trend.

Don’t confuse that statement with thinking UCF is crap. You are not. For some people it just needs to be done for a considerable stretch in your programs history. Something I am confident will be the case with your program.

(05-29-2014 04:13 PM)fade2blac Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:07 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 03:59 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Hard to make an argument for ucf = Houston too. We have more championships while in the same league and better head to head. I think he is stretching to say the west is as good as the east. That is why I want to move Cincy west and Tulane east.

remove last year, you beat 1 top 25 team in school history, and it happened to be houston. lets not get carried away with last season

head to head match up is irrelevant in deciding overall strength, cincy has a bad to head to head match up vs the majority of the league. that doesnt change anything
we lost but its more telling that we were favored in the vast majority of those games. oleary knowing how to handle spread teams isnt a factor in overall program strength

Why are we supposed to remove last year?

im not saying remove it from the entire picture but look whats beyond that.

i know most people are "what did you do for me recently" but you cant base an argument on an entire strength of a program of 1 season.

Ted Lewis ‏@LewisAdvocate ·13 mins
AAC will announce FB divisions on Friday - tulane in west with SMU, UH, Tulsa, Memphis and Navy @AdvocateSports

(05-29-2014 04:13 PM)GO Coogs GO!!! Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:09 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:04 PM)bearcatlawjd Wrote:  The best football programs in this league currently are Cincinnati, UCF, and ECU. Houston, UConn, and USF are next in line at the moment. Tulsa, Memphis, Navy, Temple, SMU, and Tulane all have the potential to have good teams but are half step behind the other six in terms of national perception.

currently and historically and recently that statement is wrong

I would include UH (go figure...) but other than UCF being "new money" I would have to agree with him. That said until someone knocks UCF off the mountain they deserve to be in the top tier.

I wanted to put Houston in the top four. Probably should have. Attendance numbers were a bit lower the largest fan bases and the team has been less consistent than Cincinnati. I could argue that UConn, USF, Houston, Cincinnati, ECU, and UCF are the established brands. Navy will always be in the their own category no matter how well they do on the field. The others have work to do on the field, in the stands, or with their branding. I believe Tulsa, Temple, Memphis, SMU, and Tulane fight the perception battle more than the other seven.

Not arguing that Houston isn't good but overall the west is much weaker. Ucf alone had 4 east division titles in the c-usa 2.0 and ecu had most of the others. We went undefeated in the aac.

My thought is pulling Cincy to the west to go along with a good Houston team. Tulane that has struggled can come east which isn't too unpractical.

(05-29-2014 04:27 PM)bearcatlawjd Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:13 PM)GO Coogs GO!!! Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:09 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:04 PM)bearcatlawjd Wrote:  The best football programs in this league currently are Cincinnati, UCF, and ECU. Houston, UConn, and USF are next in line at the moment. Tulsa, Memphis, Navy, Temple, SMU, and Tulane all have the potential to have good teams but are half step behind the other six in terms of national perception.

currently and historically and recently that statement is wrong

I would include UH (go figure...) but other than UCF being "new money" I would have to agree with him. That said until someone knocks UCF off the mountain they deserve to be in the top tier.

I wanted to put Houston in the top four. Probably should have. Attendance numbers were a bit lower the largest fan bases and the team has been less consistent than Cincinnati. I could argue that UConn, USF, Houston, Cincinnati, ECU, and UCF are the established brands. Navy will always be in the their own category no matter how well they do on the field. The others have work to do on the field, in the stands, or with their branding. I believe Tulsa, Temple, Memphis, SMU, and Tulane fight the perception battle more than the other seven.

we had bad attendance last year because we didnt have a stadium last year and were jumping between multi different stadiums, but we sold out every game for almost 5 years prior to that (08-012).. aka why we are getting a bigger stadium

(05-29-2014 04:31 PM)pesik Wrote:  we had bad attendance last year because we didnt have a stadium last year and were jumping between multi different stadiums, but we sold out every game for almost 5 years prior to that (08-012).. aka why we are getting a bigger stadium

Que JML in 3.....2.....1.....

To be accurate we stopped selling out midway through 2012. 2013 was a train wreck for attendance and the multiple stadiums off campus and the last minute change for one didn't help. That said we would not have sold out 2013 based on 2012.

We would have done better thjan we did and those numbers would have continued to rise throughout the season but we would have landed in the neighborhood of 25-28k had we still be in the Rob.

Not anything to brag about but after 2012 that would have been encouraging.

(05-29-2014 04:07 PM)GO Coogs GO!!! Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 03:59 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Hard to make an argument for ucf = Houston too. We have more championships while in the same league and better head to head. I think he is stretching to say the west is as good as the east. That is why I want to move Cincy west and Tulane east.

You had the same amount of CUSA championships we did lets pump the brakes a little there......

You have the one AAC championship. So scoreboard there but let’s readdress that in a few years to see who pulls ahead.

If you want to go season by season we are up some years and you are up others. In 2013 it was your year hands down but let’s not confuse one year with everyone else just playing for second place.

To be accurate we actually had 2 conference championships (2007, 2010) while Houston had 1 (2006) while in C-USA with you. Still I'd admit that both were among the top teams during our time in C-USA (along with Tulsa and ECU).

(05-29-2014 04:13 PM)fade2blac Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:07 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 03:59 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Hard to make an argument for ucf = Houston too. We have more championships while in the same league and better head to head. I think he is stretching to say the west is as good as the east. That is why I want to move Cincy west and Tulane east.

remove last year, you beat 1 top 25 team in school history, and it happened to be houston. lets not get carried away with last season

head to head match up is irrelevant in deciding overall strength, cincy has a bad to head to head match up vs the majority of the league. that doesnt change anything
we lost but its more telling that we were favored in the vast majority of those games. oleary knowing how to handle spread teams isnt a factor in overall program strength

Why are we supposed to remove last year?

No. Your just not supposed to count last year as typical. I think his comparison chart was done to show the East and West were largely the same. I think the east is currently better, but its probably not some huge dramatic difference. If Tulsa rebounds and the upward trend at Memphis, SMU, and Tulane continues--most of the difference will be negated. If those things don't occur, then it might be a larger difference than we would all prefer. As I said before, I like Knighttimes idea of swapping Cinci and Tulane---but its not going to happen.

(05-29-2014 04:30 PM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Not arguing that Houston isn't good but overall the west is much weaker. Ucf alone had 4 east division titles in the c-usa 2.0 and ecu had most of the others. We went undefeated in the aac.

My thought is pulling Cincy to the west to go along with a good Houston team. Tulane that has struggled can come east which isn't too unpractical.

i agree with that but not because of current strength but because of perception...it will even itself out soon, some in the west will rise some in the east will fall..

im saying we should switch because we are putting more of the teams we want to rise in one division (not all will) and all teams that their rising dont exactly benefit the league in the west

in 4 years time having division battles of houston vs cincy in the west and ucf/usf/ecu in the east will be better tha houston vs tulsa battling for the west and cincy/ucf/ecu for the east (and having usf/ ecu/uconn, some of our bigger fan base teams/larger revenue losing hurting their fanbase/growth) and having tulsa or tulane or smu with their smaller fanbases fighting each other for the top spot in the west

Ted Lewis
‏@LewisAdvocate
AAC will announce FB divisions on Friday - tulane in west with SMU, UH, Tulsa, Memphis and Navy @AdvocateSports

(05-28-2014 10:19 PM)ElectricCoogaloo Wrote:  

I like the West+Navy model

Division of power is pretty fair in my opinion. Cincy is clearly the most recognizable name in the American. Navy is probably 2nd.

(05-29-2014 12:49 PM)stxrunner Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 12:32 PM)bearcatlawjd Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 12:25 PM)GO Coogs GO!!! Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 12:18 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  @shannonowens: AAC commish Mike Aresco just said it's possible East, West divisions could be decided tomorrow. Navy wants to be in West.

If Navy truly wants to be in the West I can live with it. We have a few naval bases within driving distance that would/could make for a nice visiting section. Which is something that this conference will always have trouble with considering the distances involved.

Her prediction is this:

East: ECU, Cincinnati, Temple, UConn, UCF, USF
West: Houston, SMU, Navy, Tulane, Tulsa, Memphis

I would be very happy if the divisions came out like this. As a UC fan we get all our former Big East rivals plus two very good programs in UCF and ECU. Eastern exposure and games against teams that actually have fans.

I don't understand. If that's the setup, how will the conference schedule so that UC and UCF won't play each other??

I like your sense of humor.

So the east is UCF, USF, Cincy, ECU, Temple, and UConn.

Good from a fans' perspective, because those are the teams that our fanbase most would want to see, but bad from a conference strategy standpoint.

It's likely that UCF, Cincy, or ECU could be the best teams in the AAC on any given year. Yet all 3 are going to beat eachother up in division play which will give the "P5" a-holes room to keep the AAC out of the spotlight.

USF might even cause trouble in the east if they ever get their stuff together.

IMO would have been better to swap Cincy for Memphis.