AAC Preseason Position Reviews: The final tally

Once again, we put together our AAC Preseason Position Reviews, and it’s finally time to take a look at how each team did overall. As you know, we separated the AAC teams into four categories: Elite, Second Tier, Wait and See, and Room for Improvement. We put together all of those articles into a cumulative scoring system to judge how each team compared overall.

Scoring

For every position except quarterbacks and kickers/punters: Elite got a team four points, Second Tier received three, Wait and See got two, and Room for Improvement received one.

For quarterbacks, the only difference was that Elite got you five points instead of four. For kickers/punters, Elite received two points, Second Tier got one, and the other two groups received zero.

Let’s take a look at how things played out!

Final Tally:

1. UCF- 28

T2. Houston- 23

T2. Temple- 23

4. Memphis- 22

5. SMU- 21

6. USF- 20

T7. Cincinnati- 18

T7. Tulsa- 18

9. Tulane- 17

10. Navy- 13

11. UConn- 11

12. ECU- 9

Analysis

• No real surprise seeing UCF at the top. The defending “national champions” return plenty of talent, and are well deserving of the top spot. They were the only school to never appear in the “Wait and See” or “Room for Improvement” categories once.
• The difference between teams two through six isn’t surprising at all. All of those teams (Memphis, Temple, Houston, SMU, and USF) have obvious strengths. They also have some weaknesses that should be filled with potential talent.
• The bottom three are within four points of each other, but Navy doesn’t really belong there. UConn and ECU are in a class of their own at the bottom, and the Midshipmen should fill any positional needs quicker than those two.
• There were only two positions in which UConn or ECU didn’t finish last (offensive line and kickers/punters).
• Tulsa went 2-10 last year, but they were tied for seventh with Cincinnati. The Golden Hurricane has talent, but it has to translate onto the field this year. The Bearcats weren’t great themselves, but it appears that they are on the way up in Luke Fickell’s second season as head coach.
• UCF led all teams with five appearances in the “Elite” category, followed by Memphis (4), Houston (3) and Temple (3).
• Many are picking Temple (23 points), and Tulane (17 points) as potential dark horses in the conference. It seems that both teams have the talent to make a run, so it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if they did.