Former Big East Becomes American Athletic Conference
The conference formerly known as the Big East will now go by the name of 'American Athletic Conference'. Which, originality, man. Which teams will be in the conference are still TBD, but hey, they got a name!
What is interesting to me is the inclusion of 'Athletic'. To me, the Big Ten, Pac-12, etc. are even more than athletics. I personally think "American Conference" or "Pan American Conference" or something without the word 'athletic' in it would look, feel, and sound better, but that's my opinion and probably the reason I didn't get paid millions of dollars and participate in a focus group on the issue (jk, it was the university presidents). Mike Aresco favored "American 12 Conference" but, presumably due to the fluid nature of the conference, university presidents didn't want a number in the conference name.
Full story:
I've seen worse. The story sucked, but some of those deaths were gruesome, which made it at least watchable.
Absolutely flawless.
Pronounced "aack"
It's not going to help that they overlap so much. Louisville is essentially defecting from the AAC to the ACC. No one is even trying to make this easy, are they?
The schools have no plans to have an academic alliance. Which is too bad, but by the same token, it keeps them more open about who they can accept. There are schools besides Maryland and Rutgers that the B1G would've liked, but they wouldn't be able to get AAU membership.
So it's a classier version of Conference USA.
So, this year anyway, they will have Cincinnati, Connecticut, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, SMU, Temple, UCF and USF with a mix of arrivals and departures over the next couple seasons after that.
By 2015, it is Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF and USF. As one of the comments on the article said rather succinctly, it's essentially "C-USA 2.0", it seems, especially when you think about the 2015 members.
Mike Aresco, in the CBSSports piece: "We also received terrific input from our partners at ESPN and CBS Sports. Our name is a nod to tradition, but at the same time makes clear our determination to be a Conference with national impact and appeal."
I am forced to wonder if the input was just about the appeal of the name rather than the East Carolina-Memphis rivalry.
I don't know why, but this sentence from the ESPN piece just kills me:
"Versions that included the word 'American' led every list," commissioner Mike Aresco said in a statement."
Man, UConn is really the big basketball loser in all this. They go from a top program in a great league to playing in a mid-major.
One thing that just struck me: the Catholic 7 (Big East, still, technically) running off and doin' their thing creates a new conference, correct? Or am I being lazy/dumb right now and nothing new is being "created"? If I'm on to something, does this take away one of the at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament, as this new conference now needs an auto-bid?
It's been reported, for example in this ESPN article, that the new Big East and the spinoff are both likely to get automatic NCAA tourney bids.
The NCAA is expected to approve an automatic bid for the new Big East and the old Big East to give the NCAA tournament 32 automatic qualifiers and 36 at-large berths, downfromone [from] this year.
I think the real question is whether the AAC gets an auto-bid to the BCS this year. I have to assume that will not be the case and there will be one more spot for an at-large team this year.
from the ashes led by Mike the Aresco. What's it called, Mike?
"It's called A Salute to all Nations But Mostly America"
Sounds very similar to Conference USA...which when you think about it, was a very weird name for a conference
but the Sun Belt was already using it.
Titanic...
The American Athletic Conference will be the third Division I conference with a variation of America or American in its name. The others: America East and Mid-American. There's also Conference USA, which, ironically, is the league where nine of the 12 teams in the American Athletic Conference came from.
Not sure I'd call it irony. More like sad. Since Louisville has one year in AAC before going to ACC, it's actually 7 of initial 10 are f-CUSA, 9 of the 11 in 2014, 9 of 12 in 2015, and 10 of the 14 "all-time" AAC members will be former C-USA members.
From the schools that founded C-USA in 1995, only 2 are staying on (Southern Miss and UAB) and 1 is coming back (Charlotte). From the 12 in C-USA in 2012, 7 will end up in AAC. And, as you note, to make up for that gaping hole, 5 Sun Belt schools move to C-USA over the next couple years. As WAC football evaporates, those schools scramble to Sub Belt, C-USA, and MWC. Add in FBS schools moving up like Old Dominion, and it's such a lovely picture of quality.
they delayed in announcing, conducting all the necessary market studies, etc.
Actually, it sounds terrible
when they go to two divisions in football in 2015, they could name the divisions the leaders and the legends.
Mid-American
Conference USA
America East
Why stop there?!?