Army Can Host AAC Championship

[JKillerK]

National game on a half torn down stadium. Great Press.

[wpgrad]

National game on a half torn down stadium. Great Press.

Hopefully they don’t run out of pretzels like 27x before. But the good news…it will be 19. And no tailgating on grass

[apgarme]

Rabble and wpgrad - As long as NIL and the transfer portal remain, I am not sure how Army could effectively schedule opponents geographically dispersed across the nation with whom Army can compete. The team rosters and capabilities vary so widely from year to year I am not sure how you would develop a good schedule. I adhere to the the concept of scheduling a few games we should win, a few games we might win, and a stretch game like a Notre Dame. The AAC gives us that. Also, I don't think that the AAC is generally a "destination" conference for coaches. They stay a short time in the AAC, and move on to bigger programs. An exception is of course Coach Traylor of UTSA. So I believe that Memphis, Tulane, USF and others will be formidable for short periods of time and then will become beatable because of program turbuluence. I could be wrong, but I am not sure that the future is as gloomy as you perceive.

[kfan12]

.....

https://www.recordonline.com/story/spor ... 667558007/

Nice article. Thanks for posting.

[kfan12]

Weird mindset for me right now. I care 100x more about the navy game than beating Tulane next week.

It’s stupid playing our most important game after a championship game. In a way I care more about coming out of the Tulane game healthy for navy than I do about beating Tulane. A conference championship should be a cherry on top to end the season. In this current format making the aac championship is a disadvantage for the army navy game.

Not me. Army will never achieve greatness by focusing on beating another team that rarely reaches the top 25. Army can win both games and, in the eyes of the rest of the rest of the nation, winning a conference championship is better for recruiting/prestige. Guarantee few people outside the two academies know who won the CiC last year, but more people know who won the AAC, especially given they are playing Clemson for the ACC championship this year.

[Armyfaninpa]

Anyone know when the last non service academy game on national network TV was from Michie?

I know Air Force has been on CBS and the Navy game in the COVID year but not sure when a non-SA game would’ve been.

I may be way off on this one (not being as well informed on program history as most on here) but I think it may be in the early '70s when Nebraska played in Michie in ABC's Game of the Week. Before ESPN, CBS, NBC started televising college football in the "80s there was exactly ONE game per week on TV. Needless to say, it was a very long afternoon for the Cadets as the Huskers were dominating everybody at that point in time.

[rog66]

I guess wpgrad and myself are the only ones on this forum who agree that joining any conference is a bad, bad decision down the road.
A beautiful new Michie and nobody will show up when our teams will not be as good as this years team. Ego and greed have won out on this long term campaign. Beautiful new facility, so-so teams and Coach Monken retires or quits us. Absolutely no long term thought on this whatsoever. Only thing is the present folks who run WP never, ever look at the big picture. They look only at their legacy while here. After that they could care less.
That includes Gilland, the AD and anybody else who made this everlasting boondoggle.

No you are not the only one that thinks the move to the AAC conference was a God awful idea. Very shortly Army will rue the day they made this move. Navy played in one conference final in all of the years of AAC competition. Just one in how many years? And just like Navy the first two years Army has a spoon fed schedule and after that the rubber will meet the road. Playing the same boring teams every year with no possible way out of the mess of their own making is crazy. Army has nothing in common with any of these teams except Navy. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! There's not even a neutral site to play the AAC Championship at. At least the MAC conference has a neutral field to play their championship game on. So much for the P5 bs.

[wpgrad]

Rabble and wpgrad - As long as NIL and the transfer portal remain, I am not sure how Army could effectively schedule opponents geographically dispersed across the nation with whom Army can compete. The team rosters and capabilities vary so widely from year to year I am not sure how you would develop a good schedule. I adhere to the the concept of scheduling a few games we should win, a few games we might win, and a stretch game like a Notre Dame. The AAC gives us that. Also, I don't think that the AAC is generally a "destination" conference for coaches. They stay a short time in the AAC, and move on to bigger programs. An exception is of course Coach Traylor of UTSA. So I believe that Memphis, Tulane, USF and others will be formidable for short periods of time and then will become beatable because of program turbuluence. I could be wrong, but I am not sure that the future is as gloomy as you perceive.

This is not true. About 6 months before our move to the AAC Buddie was interviewed and said Army had teans “lining up” to play us and we had a “full schedule thru 3032.” 6 months later we join the AAC because, in part, of schedule issues. So which one is the lie?

Joining the AAC was lazy and we will regret it in a few years when the shine wears off and we are stuck with a boring schedule year after year

[3Yards&Dust]

I totally agree that joining the American Conference was a terrible idea. If we were going to join a conference it should have been the ACC, with Duke, Wake, UNC, UVA. All much better institutions academically and better brand name opponents. No one wants to watch Army play Southwestern Texas State at El Paso kind of matchups. I happen to think the AAC has some pretty good football teams but if we lose it looks awful and we get no credit for wins against no-name schools. Look at the rankings. If we were in the ACC I think this team would still be contending for a conference title and if we did a playoff spot would be possible. Bad idea to take one of the best brand names in college football and throw it into a league full of commuter schools.

[gabn92]

Some thoughts on the previous couple of posts:

wpgrad: I'm not seeing any qualitative difference in Army's schedule in the AAC vs. the past 20+ years.

The formula before joining the AAC was: AF/Navy, 1 FCS (sometimes 2! yuck!), 1 P4 stretch game, and 7-8 Group of 5 opponents

The formula in the AAC is now: AF/Navy, 1 FCS (only 1! yay!), 1 P4 stretch game and 8 Group of 5 teams (albeit all in the AAC)

How is our scheduling before joining the conference qualitatively more exciting/better than what we have now?

To your question about Buddie's comments before joining the conference about having schedules filled out through 2032 or whatever...I think actions speak louder than words. My guess is those comments were helpful in posturing Army for the negotiations about joining the AAC. No reason to communicate being desperate, so I think Buddie was holding the cards close to the vest and not giving anything away. We were already seeing cancellations of deals with other teams for future schedules, so I think the handwriting was on the wall that it was only getting harder and Army was going to be squeezed completely out of the relevancy picture as an independent in the CFP world. Notre Dame is the only team that has the credentials to pull that off anymore. Look at the press/coverage Army's gotten this year being in the AAC...wouldn't have happened if we were independent.

To 3yards&dust: the main thing that NOBODY wants to see is losing Army football. Army in the ACC is just not realistic. Army would be at/near the bottom of that conference nearly every single year. Even this year when Army has had an amazing run, I think 7-4 or 8-3 is probably more realistic where Army might have hoped to finish in the ACC this year rather than the 10-1 we are all enjoying right now. Who wants to be the Vanderbilt of the ACC? In a good Army season, we can pull off upsets against mid-level ACC teams like Duke, WF, BC, Syracuse...if we catch those teams while they are average to weak. It would take a great Army season and some good breaks to be competitive against Miami, Clemson, Va Tech, etc. Joining a tougher conference would not translate to improved Army football...the same challenges Army has in recruiting and retention would remain, we'd just be playing even harder competition week-in and week-out. I think the AAC is a pretty good match overall for Army...a chance to be competitive against all the teams in the conference when Army fields a good team, and right now the AAC has a better reputation in the Group of 5 than the Sun Belt, MAC and Conference USA and is on par with the Mountain West.