Wild, wild, wild times. Around a month and a half ago, the Big 12 lost their two biggest programs in Oklahoma and Texas, so in return, the Big 12 reached out to Houston, UCF, BYU, and Cincinnati. The four teams quickly accepted the invite.
This move starts an insane ripple effect in college football. For BYU, they aren’t leaving any conference because they are independent so they are not causing the ripple, but with Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston leaving, the AAC is in shambles.
Cincinnati and UCF have essentially been the only successful teams along with Memphis out of the American so for the AAC to lose two of their three big earners just means that the conference will either fold, or they’ll add Sun Belt or Conference USA teams.
With Houston, they’ve had up and down seasons but, it just makes sense for them to be in the Big 12 by geographic location. They’re one of the only Texas teams that weren’t in the Big 12. The Cougars now join Baylor, TCU, and Texas Tech as teams from the Lone Star state in the Big 12.
Now with the Big 12 scooping up these four programs, the only schools left in the American are Tulsa, Tulane, Navy, South Florida, Temple, East Carolina, Southern Methodist, and Memphis.
I am beyond curious to see what their next move is to try to keep the conference relevant. They struck gold with “National Champions” UCF a few years back and benefited from a rising Cincinnati and Memphis team, but that seems to be gone.
As a college football fan, I cannot wait to see the next domino drop. Extremely exciting.