Cincy on the Prowl
Fansided

Maybe The American Isn’t So Bad After All

By Bearcat Jones

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Many Cincinnati Bearcats fans (myself included) have spent the past few years fretting about UC’s status as a member of the Mid-Major/Group of Five/Resource Five/Group of Have-nots American Conference.  We as a fanbase have spent countless hours wondering whether the Big 12 or the ACC or someone else will ever extend the Bearcats an invitation to join.  In years like 2014, when UC and the other co-champs in The American posted 9-3 regular seasons in football (and were thus never really in contention for the Group of Five’s New Years’ Six Access Bowl Bid), it seemed like UC football would never have a chance to again take the big stage as it once did in 2008 and 2009.  UC seemed destined to always be a “have not,” with its $2M a year AAC television contract  dwarfed by the Power Five’s deals that pay each member school ten times that.  It was doomsday for the Bearcats.  Unless Mike Bohn’s caller ID lit up with the numbers Bob Bowlsby or John Swafford, the $20M/year check they offered, and the increased exposure and schedule strength, UC would never compete or be relevant on a national stage, ever.

But then came the 2015 football season.  While UC faltered early in conference play, other teams in The American grew strong and began to make a name for themselves.  Memphis beat 13th ranked SEC power Ole Miss and started the year 6-0.  Temple beat Penn State in their season opener and parlayed that momentum into a 7-0 start themselves.  Houston hired a hot, young coach, opened a new stadium, and started 7-0 themselves, including a road win over our old nemesis, Louisville.  All three teams found themselves ranked in the AP Poll by the end of Week 7.  Navy has quietly started the season 6-1 and controls its own destiny for a league title, and ECU continues to rattle off good showings and wins against the ACC.  From the standpoint of perception, things couldn’t be better than they are right for The American, and that is simply wonderful for Bearcats athletics.

An extra $18M windfall every year from a Big 12 or ACC TV deal sure would be nice for the athletic department, but would it actually make UC more competitive?  Would it allow UC any better opportunity to compete for a birth in the College Football Playoff?  Or would UC football become what West Virginia has now that the Mountaineers have reached their greener pasture?  After being the class of the old Big East – okay, maybe class is the wrong word to use for WVU – after being arguably the best football program in the old Big East, WVU’s first four seasons in the Big 12 have gone like this:

  • 2012: 7-5 (4-5) (including losing five in a row in league play)
  • 2013: 4-8 (2-7)
  • 2014: 7-6 (5-4)
  • 2015 to date: 3-3 (0-3)

It’s not inconceivable that WVU finishes 5-7 and misses a bowl game again this season, which would be the second time in three years.  Further, the 9-game Big 12 league schedule almost makes it a necessity to schedule two cupcakes.  Not doing so puts Big 12 teams like WVU at risk of missing a bowl game in any given year if they aren’t really good.  WVU is in the midst of a stretch where they play four ranked teams in a row in league play.  Louisville is running into the same problem in the ACC after getting off to a 2-4 start this year (although their schedule down the stretch in the Atlantic Division is much more favorable, having already got losses to Clemson and FSU out of the way).

At least for now, the Bearcats are better positioned for success in The American, and a jump to the Big 12 would actually hurt the program.  For one thing, the UC fan base still isn’t built up to a point where it can withstand several consecutive 7-5 or 6-6 seasons, or (especially) missing bowl games.  The big crowds you’re seeing at Nippert this year would eventually begin to dwindle with several mediocre seasons in any conference.  That’s life for all Cincinnati sports teams.  Look at the Bengals.  They’re 6-0 and can’t even sell out games – we’ve seen TV blackouts when they’re in first place.  History has shown that fans in this city only back a winner.  Great American Ballpark was a ghost town after the All Star game packed up and left this Summer.  Until the Bearcats can legitimately compete for a division title in the Big 12, UC is best suited to be in the American, where it can win 9-10-11 (maybe 12?!? 13?!? Am I being too ambitious?) games every regular season and compete for a conference title (in which the championship game could potentially be played at home inside Nippert).

And what’s more is that if The American can continue to have several teams produce great starts in years to come, UC will have just as good of a shot to go to a New Years’ Six as it would in the Big 12.  It will take smart scheduling by the AAC office, but UC (or whomever the AAC champion is) can be in a great position to be selected for the Group of Five’s NY6 bid.  Making the College Football Playoff would take a 13-0 record (including the league title game), but 12-1 (and even 11-2 in many years) with a conference title game win will pretty much put any team from The American into an NY6 bowl as the highest ranked champion, provided that those losses come to ranked teams.  If the league office can avoid scheduling early-season showdowns (like UC-Temple and Temple-ECU) and backload the schedule with the big games (like it has in the West division), that can put the conference into position to have a similar scenario to this year every year.  Two, three, maybe four teams on the national radar and/or in the rankings.  Then, around Week 10, you’d start seeing the big games.  But now they’d not only big games in the league race, but big nationally, because they’d be games like #21 UC vs. #19 Memphis, #24 Temple vs. #20 Houston, #25 Navy vs. #23 ECU, etc.  Believe it or not, the AAC actually already has greater TV exposure than the Big 12.  ESPN and CBS Sports Network may not pay the league much for it, but almost 90% of AAC football home games are on national TV – national, not regional or local.

Call me crazy, but I think The American is the place for the Bearcats right now.  Maybe this football season, where we’re going to see three ranked teams in November, is just an anomaly, and Houston, Temple, and Memphis will nose dive like UCF did after it’s BCS appearance in 2013.  If that happens, call me a fool or what have you, but at least wait until then.  If the AAC can be a league with three or four good football teams every year (like it is this year), it will continue to be a great place to be for years to come.  I’d love to see the athletic department cashing $25M checks from the Big 12 TV fund, but I also like winning.  And if the Bearcats have to play TCU/Baylor/Oklahoma/OK State/Kansas State/Texas Tech/Texas (they will be back) every year, I have the feeling that many of the UC fans currently fretting about the conference situation will be the ones who jump off the bandwagon (as is tradition for Cincinnati sports fans) during back-to-back 6-6 seasons in the Big 12.  If you look at UC’s very challenging future non-conference schedules, and then tack on most of the seven Big 12 teams I named above, it’s not hard to imagine 4-8 or 5-7 seasons until this program can recruit the kind of depth it takes to truly compete.   If that were to happen, I may end up having section 210 all to myself on Saturdays.  Beating Miami (FL) at home this year was a nice win, but The U is definitely down this year, and UC still has a very poor track record against Power Five teams.  I’d rather win games and compete for conference titles than go 5-7 before the program is ready to compete at the Power Five level.  I’m not saying I want UC to stay in The American forever, but it’s also not as bad a situation as it’s made out to be.