So I emailed that writer, Jay Saunders, to quit crapping on the AAC

[adphill2]

If you read the entire post I ended it with saying "I think it's fair to claim this season we have a pretty good conference outside of the P5" which would agree with what you've said above about the AAC being a pretty good conference right now. 

The Big East was never a great conference, but it was head and shoulders better than the AAC. 

In my opinion looking at the football programs in our conference, looking at the program's histories, and even the last few years we have some seriously bad programs. 

You're comparing the bottom feeders from the ACC to ours? That makes no sense... I understand every conference has bottom feeders, but that doesn't make all bottom feeders equal. 

Boston College's record over the last 23 years is 164-124. They went 7-6 in 2014 and 2013. 7-6 in 2010. 11-3 in 2007. 10-3 in 2006. 9-3 in 2004 and 2005. You're going to compare them to SMU/Tulane? LOL Okay.

Virginia's record over the last 25+ years is 193 - 153. They have been bad the last few years with a 2-10 finish in 2013, but before that their worst record over that stretch was 3-9 in 2009. 17 Bowl Game appearances over that stretch. 

Obviously the last few years for them have been less than stellar, but that's not the norm for them. Our bottom feeder's it is the norm. Their bottom feeders vs our bottom feeders it's not even a discussion. That's not saying things can't change, but it's not likely Tulane and SMU become consistently better football programs than those mentioned above.

I am not trying to say these programs are good, but they are most certainly better than our bottom feeders which makes my point about our bottom feeders relevant when talking about my opinion on our conference being good or not.  

If we want to party and talk up the AAC and use the exact words of "this season our conference has turned out to actually be pretty darn good". I agree, 100% (up until this point). Still plenty of football to play though. I still think this is a bad conference GENERALLY SPEAKING. I obviously would love to see this conference turn into something really good, but I certainly wouldn't bet on it. 

I get what your saying and it is 100% true but to compare a team that has been in the bottom of Conference USA and another from the bottom of MWC to teams in the ACC over that same time frame is a little nutty too.. I'm not saying that SMU and Tulane are comparible to Virginia and Boston College but to say that can improve or haven't shown in improvement since joining the AAC is a little nutty as well. Tulane although still a dormat right now does seem to be improving and their coach is doing well in building that team up. SMU although putrid on defense does seem to be developing some offense and have been good in the past and were a bowl team there at the end of their CUSA days. UCONN has played much better than they did in years past and seem to be improving as well.

No our bad teams aren't as good as the middle tear bad teams of other conferences but I'd take UCONN over Oregon St, Kansas, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest and I wouldn't have last year. You could even look at USF this year we're a much better team than last year and has only added depth to the conference.

I'd say that the AAC has 3 really good teams (Memphis, Temple, Houston), 4 decent teams that could hang with the middle of the pack teams in most other conferences (excluding the SEC) in USF, Navy, ECU, Cincy, and 5 bad but improving/potential to improve Teams in UCF, Tulsa, UCONN, SMU, and Tulane.

Yes coaches could leave but name a conference that hasn't had coaches leave for other programs, even the vaunted SEC had a guy leave to go to Penn State. That happens but like UCF sucking this year we need another team to rise to the top or for them to make a good hire so they can stay successful, like Houston did this year and Temples rise from middle of the pack to pretty good this year.

Our biggest problem and what keeps us from being a "power 6" conference is our lack of great teams, lack of a consistently winning team, lack of revenue, lack of recruiting against the big boys, and our lack of history of success.

But with all of those problems we still have 3 ranked and undefeated teams that will be in the conversation for a playoff series if they can stay undefeated.

[Bulls1181]

USF ratings #s:

vs SMU 86k viewers

vs UConn 121k

vs  Memphis 1.155 Million

vs Maryland 293k

vs FSU 2.2 Million

vs FAMU No TV

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/

 

 

[Bulls1181]

Random post!

Side line reporters Erin Andrews and Craig Sager at the Oklahoma vs USF game back in 2002.

Kiwika M. what a player!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmCvDapg-I

[USFbulls24]

I get what your saying and it is 100% true but to compare a team that has been in the bottom of Conference USA and another from the bottom of MWC to teams in the ACC over that same time frame is a little nutty too.. I'm not saying that SMU and Tulane are comparible to Virginia and Boston College but to say that can improve or haven't shown in improvement since joining the AAC is a little nutty as well. Tulane although still a dormat right now does seem to be improving and their coach is doing well in building that team up. SMU although putrid on defense does seem to be developing some offense and have been good in the past and were a bowl team there at the end of their CUSA days. UCONN has played much better than they did in years past and seem to be improving as well.

No our bad teams aren't as good as the middle tear bad teams of other conferences but I'd take UCONN over Oregon St, Kansas, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest and I wouldn't have last year. You could even look at USF this year we're a much better team than last year and has only added depth to the conference.

I'd say that the AAC has 3 really good teams (Memphis, Temple, Houston), 4 decent teams that could hang with the middle of the pack teams in most other conferences (excluding the SEC) in USF, Navy, ECU, Cincy, and 5 bad but improving/potential to improve Teams in UCF, Tulsa, UCONN, SMU, and Tulane.

Yes coaches could leave but name a conference that hasn't had coaches leave for other programs, even the vaunted SEC had a guy leave to go to Penn State. That happens but like UCF sucking this year we need another team to rise to the top or for them to make a good hire so they can stay successful, like Houston did this year and Temples rise from middle of the pack to pretty good this year.

Our biggest problem and what keeps us from being a "power 6" conference is our lack of great teams, lack of a consistently winning team, lack of revenue, lack of recruiting against the big boys, and our lack of history of success.

But with all of those problems we still have 3 ranked and undefeated teams that will be in the conversation for a playoff series if they can stay undefeated.

I only mentioned the ACC teams because they were brought up to me that every conference has bottom dwellers such as (the teams mentioned above).

Once again, I think this year we have a pretty darn good conference. When I am stating my opinion on our conference I am talking big picture/in general and not just taking into consideration what our league has done this season. Tulane went undefeated in 1998. Since then they've had 3 winnings seasons and a combined record of 65-132. Point is Temple isn't likely to be a top 25 team consistently moving forward (over the next few years). You have to look at these programs as a whole and not what they've done through 7 games of the 2015 season. 

Anything can happen and maybe Houston, Temple, and Memphis are top 25 football teams consistently to help this conference, but I'm not betting on that. The addition of Navy was a big boost to the quality of the conference and who knows maybe this conference turns out to be really, really good. I just don't see it that way though.

[GoBulls84]

Who TF is this guy and WTF is football.com?

[slick1ru2]

I don't blame anyone for crapping on the AAC. It's not a good conference.

The conference is a heck of a lot better than I thought it'd be this season, however it's still not good. 

The problem will continue to be the bottom of our conference. There will almost certainly be 3-4 teams that struggle to win 3 or 4 games a year. Tulsa, Tulane, SMU, UCONN, and then the occasional USF/UCF bad year same goes for Temple and Memphis could be back in that conversation quickly.

Once Lynch leaves, and Fuente is not far behind him Memphis could easily be at the bottom of the conference every year with the usual suspects like they were for decades.

Memphis record since 1980 (34 years of football, from 1980-2013): 139 Wins - 244 Losses.

Temple over the same period: 120 Wins - 264 Losses.

Tulane over the same period: 138 Wins - 255 Losses (This includes an undefeated 12-0 season in 1998).

Don't have the patience to look at SMU or UCONN or Tulsa, but I'd guess it's not pretty. 

I think it's fair to claim this season we have a pretty good conference outside of the P5, but talking in general terms this conference is still pretty darn bad. 

 

And? Michigan is the winningest program in history and they've been a dog mostly the last few years. And I'm pretty sure there are losing teams in all the P5 conferences that have similar records, like Syracuse, BC and Vandy along with Duke, for examples. They aren't kicking them out to make their conference look better overall. And I don't see anyone saying the SEC, etc. is bad because of its bottom feeders. 

[smazza]

the aac is playing better than anyone thought but we are far far from a p5 conference

the aac will never ever get invited to be a power conference

the article was acurate

[USFbulls24]

And? Michigan is the winningest program in history and they've been a dog mostly the last few years. And I'm pretty sure there are losing teams in all the P5 conferences that have similar records, like Syracuse, BC and Vandy along with Duke, for examples. They aren't kicking them out to make their conference look better overall. And I don't see anyone saying the SEC, etc. is bad because of its bottom feeders. 

I don't even really know how to respond to this. I don't remember anyone claiming we need to kick teams out of our conference?

If you read what I've said a few times now, I understand every conference has bottom dwellers/consistently losing teams. You obviously didn't read what I posted above about BC's record. Maybe you should look that one up before you start throwing them out there when talking about the bottom of conferences in regards to the discussion about ours.

The SEC is the best conference in college football any way you slice it, but an absolutely fantastic comparison on your part

[Triple B]

Who TF is this guy

Excited to bring 15 years of journalism experience (news and sports) to help cover college football, Jay is a Nebraska Cornhuskers and Houston Cougars Columnist for Football.com.

You can find him deep in Big Ten and Green Bay Packers country.

 

and WTF is football.com?

 

Think Bleacher Report, only less credible ...... and yes, that is possible.

[raptorcj]

Excited to bring 15 years of journalism experience (news and sports) to help cover college football, Jay is a Nebraska Cornhuskers and Houston Cougars Columnist for Football.com.

You can find him deep in Big Ten and Green Bay Packers country.

^ funny right there. He's somewhere in/near Wisconsin, and reports on Nebraska and... Houston? One of these things is not like the other...

Edited October 30, 2015 by raptorcj