AAC
Knights Playoff Crusade
By: Mike Anthony
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
For any P5 school, an undefeated record followed up by a 12-1 showing would be cause for fans and national pundits alike to wonder if a dynasty is on the horizon.
But for a G5 school, even those incredible showings lead to questions about how far it might fall off in the next season.
Such is the plight of Central Florida in 2019.
To be sure, there are plenty of question marks for the Golden Knights as they enter the new season.
Chief among those is the absence of quarterback McKenzie Milton, whose second consecutive Heisman-level season was cut short the day after Thanksgiving last fall due to a devastating knee injury that will keep him out for all of this fall and still has his playing career very much in doubt of ever continuing.
There is also the loss of more than half of the defensive starters from last year’s squad. The Knights were good – but not great – throughout 2018 and will have to find plenty of answers this time around.
If UCF can continue to jump out ahead of opponents, the defensive rebuild will be helped greatly by an experienced secondary that will make life tough on trailing teams trying to rally through the air late in games.
Brandon Moor and Nevelle Clarke return at both corners and Richie Grant is back at safety, giving the Knights a stellar secondary.
But despite the continued absence of Milton, it’s the UCF offense that will once again make the Knights a favorite to win the AAC and continue to loom in the national polls.
Former Notre Dame starter Brandon Wimbush will step into the void behind center and – while not the passer that Milton was – can do plenty of damage on the ground.
Wimbush will be surrounded by the Knights’ top two rushers from last season in Greg McCrae and Adrian Killins, as well as receiver Gabriel Davis and his seven touchdown catches from 2018.
Even more important to the Knights’ continued offensive firestorm, UCF figures to feature, arguably, the best offensive line in the conference. Three All-AAC honorees return to the Knights’ front and can be depended on to keep the chains and the scoreboard moving as Wimbush assumes leadership of the offense.
While the Knights are once again supremely talented, a tough schedule lies ahead and will make their continued presence in the national polls a challenge.
Central Florida has a road date against a pesky Florida Atlantic squad in its second week before hosting Stanford and then traveling to Pittsburgh.
Two weeks later, the Knights travel to fellow AAC front-runner Cincinnati for a nationally televised Friday night showdown.
If UCF can survive all of that, it has a great chance of once again having a great argument for earning better rankings and more consideration for the national championship playoff.
If it doesn’t, the Knights will be the latest G5 team to become the (undeserved) butt of jokes coming from the P5 while suffering a quick fall from grace as pollsters aren’t much for giving the Cinderellas of the college football world the benefit of a doubt.
AAC To Become Power Conference?
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I’ve always loved college football more than professional for a number of reasons.
One of the biggest is because they play much harder. Losing one game can derail the entire season. Unfortunately, college football has always had its share of flaws.
Previously it was almost unheard of for the best teams to play in the national championship. The BCS guaranteed the top two teams would meet but many times it seemed like that was not the case.
Now we have a playoff with four teams coming from the five ‘power’ conferences. I think we need to rethink that because there are some pretty good teams in the ‘Group of Five’ that will never make the playoffs.
Specifically, I think the American Athletic Conference should be added to make the ‘Power Six’ conferences.
You may remember the former Big East, which is the current AAC. During the BCS era they were one of the power conferences. The heavyweight teams like Miami, Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Boston College left the conference.
The second tier institutions like Louisville, West Virginia, Pitt and Rutgers followed suit. As a result, they were very weak because of that and the conference champion would routinely be blown out in the BCS bowl game.
Over the last few years the conference has vastly improved. With schools in Florida, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania they have a great recruiting base. They are producing NFL talent which casual fans might not be aware of.
One example of that is Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles. He was picked 3rd overall in the 2014 draft. He led a very good Central Florida team to a 12-1 record in 2013. The Knights beat No. 8 Louisville in the inaugural AAC Championship and No. 5 Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl.
Houston is another program that has had recent success. They were 13-1 in 2011 as members of Conference USA. They beat UCLA and Penn State that year. They finished with that same record in 2015. The Cougars beat Louisville and Vanderbilt during the regular season and No. 9 Florida State in the Peach Bowl. They started the following 2016 season with a victory over No. 5 Oklahoma.
One of the best success stories has to be Temple. The Owls were a charter member of the Big East in 1991 but they were expelled from the league following the 2004 season. They rejoined the conference in 2012 and finally had success. They beat Penn State in 2015 and won the conference championship last year.
Memphis has produced NFL talent like Paxton Lynch, Dontari Poe, Stephen Gostkowski, Akeem Davis and DeAngelo Wiliams.
They shared the conference title in 2014 and in 2015 they upset No. 13 Ole Miss. The Tigers are currently 9-1 including a win over UCLA. They are guaranteed to win the West division and play in the AAC Championship.
UCF (10-0) faces South Florida (9-1) this week and the winner wins the East and advances to the conference championship.
The best thing any of these teams can hope for is a spot in one of the New Year’s Six bowl games. The playoffs should be expanded to at least 6 teams and if that happens the AAC champion should automatically get a playoff spot.
