AAC commissioner: UCF’s success helped establish league’s brand
As a new door to the Big 12 opens, another one closed as UCF departed the American Athletic Conference.
It’s a bittersweet time for AAC commissioner Mike Aresco, who’s guided the conference through its share of ups and downs over the last decade. Houston and Cincinnati are joining the Knights in their move to a Power Five conference.
Aresco knows these moves aren’t personal — it’s just business — and he has fond memories of UCF’s role in the AAC’s growth.
“UCF made a huge contribution to the conference by investing and doing what they did,” Aresco said. “We were proud of what they did.”
Aresco pointed to UCF’s 12-win season in 2013 as a seminal moment for the young conference, especially the Knights’ 52-42 win over sixth-ranked Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl.
“That really launched our conference because people didn’t know what we had back then,” Aresco said. “A lot of people had kind of given us up for dead. We had an excellent year and had some good teams in the conference, but some were just getting their footing.
“There was a lot of uncertainty and then UCF does what it does — it established us right away as a strong football conference.”
The AAC went to produce a College Football Playoff semifinalist (Cincinnati, 2021) and six New Year’s Six bowl participants: Houston (2014), UCF (2017-18), Memphis (2019), Cincinnati (2020) and Tulane (2022).
UCF compiled an 86-41 (68%) record in football during its time in the AAC, claiming at least a share of five conference championships. The Knights finished with an AAC-best 52 conference titles in all sports.
One of the highlights during that stretch was UCF’s 13-0 football season in 2017.
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The Knights stormed through the regular season but couldn’t crack into the top four of the Playoff rankings. Instead, they capped the campaign with a scintillating 34-27 win over seventh-ranked Auburn in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
“I’ll always be convinced that [UCF] could have won the national championship if they had a chance to play because they were just loaded with great players and [coach] Scott [Frost] did a great job with them,” Aresco said.
UCF won a school-record 25 straight games from 2017-18 before losing to Joe Burrow and LSU in the Fiesta Bowl. Burrow went on to win the Heisman Trophy the following season while leading the Tigers to the national championship.
“That period for UCF was one of the great periods; I have nothing but fond memories,” said Aresco. “I remember just how important that was to the conference, our brand, and what we were trying to do.”
Despite its accomplishments on the gridiron, UCF never finished higher than No. 8 in the Playoff rankings, but Aresco said he believes it helped open the door for future teams.
“If it weren’t for what UCF did, I don’t know that Cincinnati would have gotten the kind of attention they did in 2020 and 2021,” Aresco said. “What you see did help back then and the fact that we played competitively and won some of those New Year’s [Six] games was absolutely critical.”
The Bearcats qualified for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in 2020 and became the first Group of Five program to earn a spot in one of the two Playoff semifinals in 2021.
While he’s sad to see UCF, Houston and Cincinnati move on, Aresco is also excited for the future.
The AAC welcomes six new member schools into the league: UAB, Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice and UTSA.
The move to get FAU was important for Aresco, who values the league’s foothold in Florida.
“With FAU and with [coach] Tom Herman, the DNA is there,” said Aresco. “The competitive DNA in our conference is important and they’ve got it. [Athletics director] Brian White has done a nice job and they’re going to be pretty good.”
Aresco is excited about the potential of a USF-FAU rivalry.
“That’s going to be important and I believe it will grow like the Memphis-UCF rivalry,” he said. “Can it replace UCF-USF? I don’t know. That was a pretty good rivalry.”