Post signing day rankings: American Athletic Conference

Following signing day, the American Athletic conference pecking order has become a little bit clearer, so let’s rank the teams following the most ridiculous day of the college football calendar. To judge this, returning production, overall talent, as well as coaching changes will be the most important criteria.

1. South Florida. USF is returning a good amount of production, most importantly is returning Quinton Flowers. Flowers is an incredibly gifted quarterback, and he most certainly benefited from working under Willie Taggart. While Taggart has moved onto greener pastures in Oregon, USF arguably got even better from a coaching perspective with Charlie Strong. Strong should definitely make strides to improve the defense, and will probably not make huge changes to the already very strong offense.

2. Memphis. Memphis’s offense is going to be improved this season with more experience. Riley Ferguson is returning to head the offense after having a very efficient junior season, mixed with some explosiveness as well. Memphis is also returning their best running backs in Doroland Dorceus and Patrick Taylor Jr., both of whom were effective runners in their opportunities. While the defense may take a step back, it seems like a safe bet that most of the east will take a step back, so Memphis will probably be in contention.

3. Houston. Houston is losing a lot on both offense and defense. They also proved that when Greg Ward Jr. wasn’t incredible last year, they struggled. The quarterback position is going to be hard to replace, because the offense was pretty dependent on one player. Houston does recruit better than anyone else in the league, and Major Applewhite’s familiarity with the roster should probably help in year one. Houston should probably be the favorites in the west.

4. Central Florida. UCF is set to improve quite a bit under second year head coach Scott Frost. UCF overachieved their expectations after O’leary left the cupboard pretty empty. UCF is returning a lot of offensive production, most importantly, they gained a lot of depth in an injury riddled season. Presumably the offense should improve after a year of Frost, and there is no reason to expect a very strong defense next season after losing many players, UCF is still in a position to make a bowl game this season.

5. Southern Methodist. SMU may be a little bit lower than most people expect, especially considering all of the excitement around Chad Morris, but up to this point they have not made a bowl. While they showed flashes of their potential greatness against Houston, they were very inconsistent last season with a terrible 51-7 loss against Memphis. While SMU returns a lot of production, they are still underdogs in the west. They should be favored to make a bowl game still.

6. Tulsa. Philip Montgomery may have made a mistake by not jumping to a different job following last season. Tulsa had a great season under Montgomery, but there is probably some concern over his connection to Art Briles. Tulsa is losing a significant amount of production, and there is no reason to think that they will come anywhere near their success of last season. Still though, Tulsa fans should retain some faith in Montgomery’s system, maybe they can make some noise in the west.

7. Temple. Temple is losing a lot of production, and are going to have to learn a new system under first year head coach Geoff Collins. While Rhule did a nice job recruiting in his time at Temple, Rhule left while his name was still hot. Philip Walker, the quarterback is leaving, as well as their leading rusher. Ryquell Armstrong may play a significant role in the offense this season. If Collins is able to maximize the talent on defense, Temple has a chance to finish better than UCF.

8. Navy. It’s probably a mistake to rank a consistently strong team so low, but they are returning so little production. While Niomatalolo is a great head coach, and he always seems to be able to move through eras of stars seamlessly, it’s hard to replace this much. The offense will still probably be pretty good, as that system is pretty hard to stop, but it may not be able to make up for the lack of talent on defense like it did last season.

9. Cincinnati. Luke Fickell was a pretty expected, and not exciting hire, but it also made sense, and with his work in local recruiting grounds in the three weeks that he had the job showed why he deserved this job. Fickell has experience recruiting in both Ohio, and Florida, and a little bit of Pennsylvania. If Cincinnati can manage to recruit those three states, within three years Cincinnati will probably be knocking on the Big 12’s door again. This year however, they will probably still not be overly impressive. While it’s possible that Tuberville is way worse than I’m giving him credit for, my guess is that it will take some time for Fickell to get his head coaching skills ready to lead them to a west title in the AAC.

10. Tulane. Tulane is a team that has a chance to rise in this conference this season. While I have them ranked 10th, if there is a team that could come out of nowhere with a second year head coach, it’s Tulane. Willie Fritz runs a weird triple option offense out of the gun, and they are returning a lot of production. If the offense starts to click a little more after another year working under Fritz, and the defense can rise to at least average in the conference, they have a chance to make a bowl game this year.

11. East Carolina. The fall of ECU is sad. There isn’t much to say about them right now, except that they lost a lot of production from a year that they were pretty bad. Replacing starting players with even worse backups is a pretty good recipe to become a bad team. Hopefully ECU improves, because they had one of the most fun offenses in the NCAA for a couple years, and always played a fun non-conference game where people always thought they would have a shot.

12. UCONN. Bob Diaco did a pretty bad job as a head coach. Randy Edsall was an uninspired hire, and there is no reason to think that he is going to come into this job with any sort of passion to revitalize the fan base, and the recruiting base. UCONN needs to improve pretty badly however, because they are another team that is on major conferences radar. They have a somewhat significant fan base, and their basketball program is attractive to both the Big 12, and ACC if they go through another round of expansion. UCONN has a significant chance to go winless in conference this season.