These conferences are considered less prestigious and are generally perceived to have lower quality of play compared to the power five conferences though a number of group of five teams have upset power five teams in regular season and bowl games, and the Cincinnati Bearcats football team appeared once in the 4-team college football playoff once when it was a member of the AAC.īeginning in the 2024 season, at least one group of five conference champion is guaranteed entry to the College Football Playoff as the top six ranked conference champions automatically advance to the playoff. The five conferences are the American Athletic Conference (American or AAC), Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA), Mid-American Conference (MAC), Mountain West Conference (MW or MWC), and Sun Belt Conference (SBC). In college football, the Group of Five are five athletic conferences whose members are part of NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The Appalachian State Mountaineers (in white, facing Michigan) compete in the Sun Belt Conference, one of the Group of Five conferences. For the emerging economies group, see Group of Five. Let’s take a deeper look at who these schools are and who brings the most value to the AAC during conference realignment at the Group of Five level.This article is about a group of college football conferences. One thing that stands out immediately is that after AAC realignment, the conference will have four teams that call Texas home (SMU, North Texas, Rice, and UTSA).Īnother, interesting tidbit, is the conference will have three teams featuring an owl as their mascot: Rice, Florida Atlantic, and Temple.įinally, a majority of these schools have been playing football for 20 years or less (FAU, Charlotte, UAB, UTSA), making their move to the AAC all the more impressive. Was there a process to see if Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, and Louisiana were interested in switching conferences? Was there one-sided interest or no interest? Either way, it’s puzzling not to see at least one of those teams from the Sun Belt involved. These are all nice choices, but you have to wonder why the Sun Belt was not involved. Which teams are reportedly set to apply for membership during AAC football realignment?įlorida Atlantic, Charlotte, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA are all going to submit applications to join the AAC this week, per Yahoo’s Pete Thamel. In a perfect world, when tens of millions of dollars weren’t already committed to television contracts and other things, it would make sense to cluster teams together to reduce travel and expenses. It was all just pie-in-the-sky and a haphazard attempt at appearing to be proactive.
In reality, that idea never had real credence. Now we know why Conference USA was pushing so hard for a total regionalization of the AAC, C-USA, and Sun Belt - they saw the writing and the wall and had nothing to lose by pitching their radical idea. The list is comprised of teams exclusively from Conference USA, leaving that Group of Five conference with just eight programs. The American Athletic Conference is set to receive applications to initiate AAC football realignment after weeks of rumors about how the conference will adjust after losing Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston to a Power Five conference, according to Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports.
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