The American Athletic Conference will welcome some new members this season to help fill the void that will be left by Louisville and Rutgers. Tulsa, Tulane and East Carolina will join the conference this season, bringing the conference’s membership to 11. Navy will join as a football member in 2015, bringing the conference up to 12 teams, but for now there are no plans on how to divide the conference into two divisions. Speaking on a conference call with the media Tuesday, AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said those details are still being evaluated.
Aresco said the conference plans to review the different division scenarios during the conference’s spring meetings and a decision on how the conference will be divided could be shared as early as this summer during the conference’s annual media days.
With a conference that spans from Connecticut down to Florida and as far west as Texas and Oklahoma, there is no real obvious dividing line. A hypothetical division line-up could group the eastern schools (UConn, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Navy, Temple and either USF or UCF) in one division and the newer members in the southwest region (Houston, Memphis, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa and either UCF or USF) in the other.
How would you divide the AAC into two divisions?
Louisville will join the ACC and Rutgers will join the Big Ten effective July 1. On that day, the AAC will officially add Tulane, Tulsa and East Carolina from Conference USA.