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So do you think Navy's win over Memphis makes Navy look really good, or Memphis look really bad?
Do you think the argument could be made that with Navy, Temple, Memphis, and Houston, the AAC is better than the ACC?

Navy and Temple each went toe to toe with Notre Dame, as did Clemson. Any of those three games could've gone either way. Memphis put it to Ole Miss. I think the top of our conference has competed at a high level.

If the AAC keeps this up over the next couple of years and they expand to an 8 team playoff then they might get a team on the playoffs.

Our top 4 teams have showed they can compete with almost anyone but to say the AAC > ACC is a bit of a stretch. I don't think our mid & lower tier programs equal theirs, although I would have loved to play Wake Forest this year instead of JMU so we might have had a better indication of how the lower programs compare. Bottom line in all of this is that we have to hope those top 4 programs can sustain their talent levels and that SMU and others join them as nationally competitive programs.

Charleston Pony wrote:Our top 4 teams have showed they can compete with almost anyone but to say the AAC > ACC is a bit of a stretch. I don't think our mid & lower tier programs equal theirs, although I would have loved to play Wake Forest this year instead of JMU so we might have had a better indication of how the lower programs compare. Bottom line in all of this is that we have to hope those top 4 programs can sustain their talent levels and that SMU and others join them as nationally competitive programs.

Agree w/ all of this. The acc has the #1 team in the country, which is a major trump card. But I feel our top four could compete with the rest of the conference, aside from maybe struggling w/ fsu's athletes. Just need to see the aac continue to improve the bottom tier and pair that with continued hoops success and this is a very legitimate conference imho.

jcarr wrote:So do you think Navy's win over Memphis makes Navy look really good, or Memphis look really bad?
Do you think the argument could be made that with Navy, Temple, Memphis, and Houston, the AAC is better than the ACC?

Now? Absolutely not. One season is a data point, a few is a trend, more cements the growth.

If this trend continues and the great play of the top 4 teams both continues and expands to a few more schools (ahem...significantly including and being led by us, of course!), I can completely see the AAC welcomed into the family. This requires that consistency and continued growth in both football and basketball whereby the P5 schools and (more importantly) the primary advertisers/tv rights owners view the AAC as the financially enticing entity, not a few individual schools. If only a few schools maintain that success on the field and on the court, then they will be poached and the AAC will remain a G5.

I definitely hope this season is a preview of what is to come.