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With the release of the 2016 American Athletic Conference schedule, we get to see some of the more interesting elements of each team's scheduling. Some of those oddities include:
- Seven teams will play a FCS opponent during the first week of play including the University of Connecticut, UCF, Cincinnati, South Florida, East Carolina, Memphis and Navy. Notably, every AAC team will play an FCS team at some point for a total of 12 games.
- The ACC dominates non-conference play for the American, with 10 matchups between opponents from the pair of conferences. The Big 10 and Independents are tied for second with five matchups, followed by the Big 12 with four. The Mountain West, Conference USA and the MAC each have three, while the SEC and Sun Belt have two games with AAC opponents apiece.
A look at the breakdown for nonconference opponentshttps://t.co/i7sLgCoGky pic.twitter.com/9pXXlBqC2f
— American Football (@American_FB) February 9, 2016
- Notable matchups for non-conference play include: a Nov. 5 game between Notre Dame and Navy at Everbank Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida (Presumably because there is a naval base situated in the city), a Sept. 10 matchup between UCF and Michigan in Ann Arbor, a rematch between Houston and Louisville set for Nov. 17 and a mid-season game between Memphis and Ole Miss on Oct. 1. In total, AAC teams will play eight teams who finished in the AP top 25.
- Cincinnati, Houston and Memphis will each play four weeknight games apiece next season, tied for the most in the conference. Tulane, Temple and the UConn will each had three. Central Florida and Southern Methodist will have the least weekday matchups in the conference with one game each.
The AAC kicks off their season with three games on Sept .1. (Tulane at Wake Forrest, UConn versus Maine and Cincinnati versus UT-Martin)