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If this is what happens, then the AAC is going to be thrown into flux again. That’s before you consider the fast-rising Sun Belt. That means schools that already have made massive investments in their athletics, like Colorado State, San Diego State, and Boise State. They’re competing with everyone in the G5.

To get to the Big 12, it’s not just an arms race between AAC teams, though. If you’re not at least on the coattails of the P5, then you’re not going to be able to compete at the highest level due to simple financial realities. The divide within the P5 is growing rapidly too. It’s an arms race to the top of the AAC because presidents and athletic departments realize that the number of spots in the P5 are quickly running out. These moves would make them more appealing to the Big 12. USF has broken ground on an indoor practice facility and seems to be getting serious about an on-campus stadium for the first time, recommending a location for the project. SMU recently received a $50 million donation and has plans to build more than $100 million in new athletics facilities. For instance, USF will likely benefit from UCF already being in the Big 12, to make their rivalry a conference game again and give the Knights a travel partner.ĪAC schools have known this was a possibility long before Mike Gundy spoke about the possibility of expanding again. In the right circumstances, it would also help to give teams a geographic partner. Those reasons include things like media market size, the quality of facilities, on-field success, fundraising, and the health of the athletics department as a whole. Those schools, SMU, Memphis, USF, even Tulane would all fall under immediate consideration for various reasons. They would likely look towards the AAC first for expansion, again. If, when that time comes, they do decide to expand again, it could potentially spell very bad news for the AAC. He also said that once the dust has settled, then the Big 12 conference will reassess the situation. When you watch this thing, the Big 12 always had some issues, because people would say, there are only 10 (members).” Now, the Big 12 is likely to have an awkward year or two as its membership transitions, but Gundy is referring to long-term expansion to fourteen teams. He said, “We could be at 14 very easily, five years from now, from what I’m hearing.I think there’s strength in numbers. They were mostly sparked by comments recently made by Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy. AAC teams, like SMU, Memphis, and USF, have all been making moves to prepare for expansion, like expanding facilities. After all, they wanted to do everything in their power to make sure they were still a Power Five conference. Along the way, there were always rumors that the Big 12 wasn’t going to be done expanding. It became a matter of fact that the only conference they could realistically take from was C-USA, which everyone wanted out of and barely survived this round of realignment. In particular, Mountain West schools that briefly seemed to have mutual interest with the AAC fell through. The AAC had to find answers but struggled to find schools to join them, as they were seen as the conference in trouble by then. The other was Independent BYU.įrom there, the G5 went through its own realignment. Three of them came from the AAC Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF. Importantly, he also turned around and landed four new schools for the Big 12, to stabilize the conference. That included declaring that the AAC and ESPN were colluding against the Big 12 for media purposes. He also deserves credit for aligning the conference as a whole following the coup, so that they wouldn’t get picked apart. Bob Bowlsby, rightly, took a ton of blame for not realizing that the SEC was after his two biggest brands. That, rather obviously now, isn’t what happened.

Hypothetically, that would leave the Big 12 so weak that it wouldn’t have the influence to poach teams from the Group of Five, and the AAC could snag teams like TCU and West Virginia. Rumors swirled that, to keep up with the SEC, the Big 10 and PAC-12 would try to act like vultures and take what they wanted next. The Big 12 had been blindsided by the SEC taking Texas and Oklahoma, which left every other school to consider its own future. Once upon a time, there was hope and optimism for the AAC in conference realignment.