USF, NOT Houston, leads the AAC in 2 year recruiting rankings

Last week Bill Connelly released his five-year and two-year recruiting rankings for all 128 FBS teams. Of course, Alabama was number one in both categories which was expected and boring. But what was interesting from the data pool was the variance among G5 teams.

For today, we'll focus on the American Athletic Conference.

Although Houston finished as the best G5 school in Connelly's five-year rankings - which translated to Houston being the best G5 team last year - they were third behind USF and UCF in the two-year rankings. Being that the five-year rankings have already been translated on the field, we'll focus primarily on the two-year rankings as they give us the better prognostication for next season.

Also since conference realignment as its configured today started three years ago the two-year recruiting rankings give a more fair perception to see who's been recruiting the best.

• Yes, two years is a pretty small sample, but UCF and USF are known to be two of the best G5 schools when it comes to recruiting rankings. Residing in the Sunshine State helps. The fact they lead the AAC doesn't surprise me. Scott Frost and Willie Taggart are going to make for some entertaining recruiting battles.
• Houston may have brought in a great class this year but Houston won't have the superior talent advantage over their peers as perception will have you to believe. At least not next year.
• But Houston does have far better recruiting numbers than their foes in the AAC West. Out of the top six teams in the two-year recruiting rankings in the AAC, five of them reside in the AAC East.
• The AAC West does however boast the two teams who have had the biggest spike in recruiting over the last two years since moving into the AAC with Houston (+18) and Memphis (+11).
• The AAC West also has the largest negative change in recruiting with Navy (-32) and Tulane (-13).

Navy played in the AAC and joined a conference for the first time last season which turned out to be a resounding success. Being that Navy will routinely finish last in recruiting rankings due to their unique status of being an academy it'll be interesting to see if they can keep up the good play in the long run against teams who will yearly bring in better players.

Houston will most definitely be the favorite in the AAC and an overwhelming favorite in the AAC West but if the recruiting numbers are to believed as to who may win the conference next year, and they most definitely should, USF may surprise a few folks and not only win the AAC East, but the entire league.