Alliance of American Football Chooses Unique Method of Filling the Rosters

On February 9th, 2019, the first game of the Alliance of American Football will kick off. If you haven’t heard of the AAF yet, it is a new springtime professional football league founded by Charlie Ebersol and Bill Polian that will start competition six days after Super Bowl LIII. Although the team names have not yet been announced, the eight cities that will be home to the inaugural teams have.

Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, and Salt Lake City will host teams, with six of the eight teams playing in the home stadiums of G5 teams: Georgia State Stadium (Atlanta), Legion Field (Birmingham), Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium (Memphis), Spectrum Stadium (Orlando), Alamodome (San Antonio), and SDCCU Stadium (San Diego).

Now, at this point, you may be wondering: which team should I root for? Well, the AAF may have just helped you answer that question.

The AAF has announced that players will be allocated to teams based on where they played their college ball.

So, if any of your favorite team’s players decide to give the AAF a try, they’ll all be playing on the same team! The AAF has also announced which colleges will be associated with each team:

Atlanta: Georgia, Clemson, Louisville, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, Mercer, Savannah State, Albany State, Clark-Atlanta, Fort Valley State, Morehouse, Shorter, Valdosta State, West Georgia

Birmingham: Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Louisiana Tech, NC State, Maryland, Missouri, UAB, South Alabama, Troy, Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Jacksonville State, Samford, Miles College, North Alabama, Tuskegee, West Alabama

Memphis: Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Memphis, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Middle Tennessee, Austin Peay, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT Martin, Carson-Newman, Lane, Tusculum

Orlando: Florida, Florida State, Miami, UCF, USF, Florida Atlantic, FIU, Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M, Jacksonville, Stetson, Florida Tech, West Florida

Phoenix: UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona, Arizona State, Illinois, Texas Tech, Washington State, Nevada, Northern Arizona, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Northwestern, UTEP

San Antonio: Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Baylor, Rice, Houston, SMU, TCU, North Texas, UTSA, Texas State, Abilene Christian, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, Lamar, Prairie View A&M, Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin, Texas Southern, Angelo State, Midwestern State, Tarleton State, Texas A&M-Commerce, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Texas-Permian Basin, West Texas A&M

San Diego: USC, Stanford, Washington, Colorado, San Diego State, Fresno State, San Jose State, UNLV, Hawaii, UC Davis, Cal Poly, Sacramento State, San Diego, Azusa Pacific, Humboldt State

Salt Lake: Cal, Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma State, Utah State, Boise State, BYU, Wyoming, Air Force, Southern Utah, Weber State, Colorado State, Northern Colorado, Idaho, Idaho State, Dixie State

John Gutierrez-USA TODAY Sports

For sure, this is an interesting concept. Instead of a typical draft, the AAF will just send players to a team based on which college they played for. Your favorite quarterback and wide receiver combination graduated? Maybe you can see those two hook up again in the pros! For schools not listed above, if the player has NFL/CFL experience, each of those teams have been assigned to an AAF team, as well. If not, the player becomes a free agent.

It’s unclear for now whether this is just for the startup of the league, or if this is something they will continue into the future. Still, it could make things very interesting with some of the rosters this could create.

One this is for sure, though. If this league works out, it will be fun to have more football to watch during the spring!