College football is threatening to become a closed fraternity.
But the American Athletic Conference, to its credit, is taking steps to be part of the conversation.
The league, which made an instant splash in its first year when UCF outscored Big 12 champion Baylor in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl, is growing up before our very eyes and creating its own brand.
And it promises to only get better with the addition of Navy -- one of the class acts in Division I football -- the home run hires of Tom Herman of Houston, Chad Morris of SMU and Philip Montgomery of Tulsa -- arguably the three best offensive coordinators in the country last year -- and the completion of a new on-campus facilities like the Yulman Stadium at Tulane, TDECU Stadium at Houston and the allocation of $86 million dollars to put a facelift on Cincinnati's venerable Nippert Stadium.
Some deserving teams like divisional favorites Cincinnati and Memphis and UCF, Houston and Navy may be under the radar in the preseason top-25 polls at the start of the season, but The American should gain a national profile with televised nonleague games against 25 Power 5 teams – games against Penn State, Notre Dame, Stanford, TCU, Vanderbilt, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville Missouri, Ole Miss and South Carolina – as well as the season-ending military academy classic between Navy and Army in Philadelphia.
This balanced 12-team league will also hold its first championship game Dec. 5 at the site of the highest-ranked team.
Although commissioner Mike Aresco praised what the Power 5's traditions and what they have accomplished during the conference’s Summer Kickoff and media days in Newport, Rhode Island, he did not sound like a man who was ready to raise the white flag.
If anything, he gave an inspired, impassioned defense of his league. Aresco said what his football coaches wanted to hear and want to believe.
“I consider us a challenger brand,” Aresco said. “America is about upward mobility and opportunity and that is what the American Athletic Conference represents. We will not accept limitations, we will determine who and what we are.
“We respect the Power 5, their traditions, their success on the field, their fan bases and national popularity, their TV ratings. But we also know that our schools look very much like many of theirs and that we can compete with them. Having said that, I do not like the perceived divide in college sports, especially in college football. I would like to see more media attention, which influences public attention and public opinion, focused on us, not simply the Power 5.
“We have schools with traditions and schools with emerging programs. We have schools in big markets. We have great coaches and we have several new stadiums. We are committed to providing full cost of attendance and other items that promote student athlete well-being. We are in rich recruiting areas. Scholarship limits were preserved in the NCAA governance redesign. All of this means that we will compete at the highest level.”
Temple coach Matt Rhule, who played at Penn State and hosts both the Nittany Lions and Notre Dame this fall, can see that.
“It's way closer than people think,” Rhule said. “Even within, they use the word, ‘Power 5.’ That's about autonomy, what they're allowed to do, But I think we proved last year how competitive this league can be when we went in and beat Vanderbilt on our opener. In any one of those leagues, the SEC, the Big Ten, there are going to be schools that are going to be legitimate top-10 teams, but there are a lot of schools in those leagues that are have-nots. Now, they have the TV money, but on the field it’s different. There are a lot of teams in our league that are not just better, but significantly better than their teams. College football is always about the teams, not necessarily the league.”
“I don't look at us as any different than any other conference,” said Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville, who coached Auburn to a perfect season in 2004 and defeated Alabama five times out of six when he was in the SEC. “I'd say the biggest difference is probably the tradition of the other leagues. The fan support plays a huge part, and the administration's willingness to build a successful program. If you look at the Power 5, you could probably take 15 to 20 percent of the Power 5 and say this is who's going to win the national championship every year.
“The rest of them are like we are. They are trying to fight their way in. So I don't really like the separation of college football. I don't think it's good for the sport. Unfortunately, that's the direction we've gone in the last couple years. Hopefully we can lean away from that because there are a lot of good football programs rather than just the Power 5. There are a lot of teams in our conference that are as good as the teams in the Power 5.”
First-year Houston coach Tom Herman is the former offensive coordinator at Ohio State and has one of the best minds in college football.
“I don't think there's that big a gap,” he said. “I would take our players, our staff and the way we do things over the middle of the pack in the so-called Power 5, regardless of conference affiliation,” he said. “Now, I don't want to name names, but every team in the FBS has teams at the bottom that struggle for budget, attendance, wins. And then there are the Ohio States and the Alabamas. We're playing Louisville, a good ACC team, this year. That will be a good barometer for us.”
In the end, college football is a bottom-line sport and you have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Last year, The American was 4-21 against teams from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC.
“I think that's the key to the conference,” said UCF's constantly successful coach George O'Leary, who has been doing this for 47 years. “If you want to get respect you’ve got to earn it by beating better people, treating those games like there are conference games and winning them because that's what's going to affect the reputation of the league. Worry about what we can do.”
In any given year, there are likely 10 teams capable of winning a national championship. But the gap between most of the Power 5 teams and the best teams in The American is not nearly as wide as perceived.
“Our goal is to be in the Power 5 conversation as a de facto sixth power conference,” Aresco said. “That, we can control by our performance on and off the field. We can gain respect by competing, by winning our share, by the quality of our teams, by our game attendance, by the things we are doing to promote student-athlete well-being.
“If we look and act like the so-called Power 5, we will be in the conversation and eventually Power 6 will enter the media and public lexicon and perceptions. The autonomy designation is legislative and bureaucratic. It does not mean automatic superiority on the field or on the court.
“That has to be earned.”