Week 4 PASS/FAIL Report: AAC

AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

 

PASS: Navy, East Carolina, Houston

Navy looks to be in control of their own destiny moving forward in AAC play if everything holds as it does now. The Middies were always looking to be a top three in the EAST, but now look like they have enough in the tank to take the conference after largely coasting at U Conn.

Now matter how good or bad East Carolina can be during any season, they always seem to have Virginia Tech’s number, and did have it again this week in a 35-24 win over Virginia Tech. The Pirates used bad weather and sound fundamentals to take the Hokies down yet another peg.

Houston is succeeding under Tom Hermann, and the Cougars are looking like they got an A+ hire early in the tenure. The Cougars cruised to a 59-13 win over Texas State, and look flawless heading into conference play.

 

FAIL: Cincinnati, Memphis, UCF, U Conn, SMU

Cincinnati lost Gunner Kiel, found a record setting QB in Hayden Moore, played miserable defense, and found a way to lose to Memphis to now go 0-2 in AAC play after being favorite to win the league. The Bearcats are rudderless right now, and look like they lack on field leaders.

Even though Memphis won to go to 4-0, and beat Cincy on top of it, if they played in a NY6 bowl today against a Power 5 opponent, they’d get blasted with that terrible defense. No matter how good Memphis appears, I assert that it’s all smoke and mirrors.

The question is largely who is the worst team in the country, and the answer is either Kansas, Wyoming, or UCF, and they all have great arguments. UCF has the 2^nd worst Quality Wins Index rating in our latest QWI rankings (which will be posted Wednesday night), and is just offensively offensive.

Speaking about having no clue on offense, U Conn has scored over 20 points just once this fall, and defense is the only thing keeping them close in games.

SMU is the flunky of the week after falling at home to FCS member James Madison, as the Dukes (our number one team in the PRS rankings for FCS last week) rolled up 48 points on the Mustangs in a 48-45 loss for the home team. Chad Morris has much more work to do.