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I am a fairly new Army fan, just a 28 year season ticket holder. I suffered through our CUSA experience, but also saw some great football games at Miche against some really good football teams. The Louisville OT night game, watching Randy Moss in person, etc. I think we would have been more competitive with the current coach and administration. Let’s face it, we can rarely attract quality opponents to our stadium and end up with 2 Div II opponents, new struggling Div I opponents, and mediocre lower level conference schools. With the consolidation of conferences, the level of opponent will continue to decline. The AAC gives us a chance to see better teams each week.

It would not be unrealistic that our home schedule in AAC would be tulsa, charlotte, UAB, florida atlantic and then holy cross. With our 6th home game being air force in some nfl stadium

Be careful what you wish for….

I severely doubt this situation will occur.

How about a home schedule with Houston, UCONN, Temple, Memphis, East Carolina, Rice?

NJVince wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:51 pm How about a home schedule with Houston, UCONN, Temple, Memphis, East Carolina, Rice?

Geez, how exciting! I'm sure those thousands upon thousands of Rice and Houston fans will flock all the way to Michie Stadium to watch an Army game. They didn't years ago in C-USA so why would they now all of a sudden have a change of heart? Guys, I don't think so. And geez, those guys from Birmingham will sure love coming to West Point to watch their Alabama team tangle with us on the exciting AAC schedule. I can't wait for that one.
Repetitive playing year after year playing the same teams all the time will become boring, boring and yes, MORE boring;
So, you win a trophy once in a great while. OH joyous!! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! Yeah, so what. I want that CIC Trophy EVERY year. Folks, that is the one we want EVERY year because that is the one that REALLY counts for us and should be the one for every Army fanatic.
These discussions are now and forever in a word, BULLSHIT!! (or is it two words?}

Rabble: The big time schools, including some ACC schools, no longer want or need to come to Michie. This is no longer 1973 when Tennessee, Cal, Notre Dame came to West Point. Everyone does want to play Army, but almost everyone (Oklahoma being the exception) is willing to come to Michie for a game....they get a much bigger payout playing at home against Northwest Southern State U. And, how it was explained to me, more and more schools would rather play Akron or New Mexico State because if the coach loses to Army they have a better chance of losing their jobs.....

I remember the CUSA debacle all too well. But as they say, "You can't fight city hall." and in this case City Hall is the momentum of movement to conferences. AAC is probably the best choice at this point. There are still National schools in there (Rice, Tulane, SMU) and it would be better than winding up in the Funbelt or CUSA (again). I think that the drawback I see is that with the Navy game being non-con and playing AF every year, we have very little flexibility for Non-con variety. But pick your poison, I suppose.

NJVince wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:51 pm How about a home schedule with Houston, UCONN, Temple, Memphis, East Carolina, Rice?

Houston is now in the Big 12, not the AAC.

Army's historic rivals are Yale, Notre Dame, Navy, and Air Force.

The Yale rivalry died scores ago. Notre Dame withered after 1947. Air Force and Navy are still going strong.

Look at our top-10 most played opponents:

Navy: 123*
Air Force: 58*
Notre Dame: 51
Yale: 46
Rutgers: 40
Harvard: 39
Boston College: 39*
Colgate: 31
Pitt: 27
Penn State: 26
Duke: 26

Other receiving votes: Holy Cross: 25*, Tulane 23^, Syracuse: 22*, Villanova 22, Lafayette 20, Tufts 20

20-0 all-time against Tufts. Put them on the slate!

*Counting 2023's contest

Now look at our all-time results against AAC teams:

Charlotte: Never played
ECU: 0-8
FAU: Never played
Memphis: 1-4
Navy: 52-64-7
North Texas: 5-2
Rice: 4-4-1
South Florida: 1-1
Temple: 6-7
Tulane: 9-13-1
Tulsa: 0-1
UAB: 0-5
UTSA: 3-1

Departing members: SMU: 3-0

There is almost no history outside of the Navy series. Yeah, we played Rice for the first time in 1958. Woo hoo! We first played Temple in 1943. Yay! Tulane was first battled in 1953. Huzzah! And most of those teams don't have fan bases, much less fans that will travel.

We are a team without a conference. We already play our two biggest rivals. Our ancient rivals are either sealed off Ivy League/Patriot League teams or P5 foes without interest in us. Penn State doesn't even want to play Pitt every year. Pitt doesn't care about us (our last game was in 1983). Rutgers is probably too fearful now that we aren't bottom feeders. Boston College seems interested but we went 10 years without playing. It is just a regional game that isn't UConn or UMass to them. Duke likes us but they are interchangeable with Wake Forest.

Actually, we have a conference. It is called the Commander in Chief Trophy conference. Go 2-0 in it and make a bowl game. That is Army football's realistic outcome in the modern era. The NY6 and playoffs should be saved for the upcoming NCAA football video game.

hiangle6 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2023 10:12 am I remember the CUSA debacle all too well. But as they say, "You can't fight city hall." and in this case City Hall is the momentum of movement to conferences. AAC is probably the best choice at this point. There are still National schools in there (Rice, Tulane, SMU) and it would be better than winding up in the Funbelt or CUSA (again). I think that the drawback I see is that with the Navy game being non-con and playing AF every year, we have very little flexibility for Non-con variety. But pick your poison, I suppose.

There's been conference shake ups in the past and there will be more in the near future. No upside for Army joining the AAC same tv contract with CBSSN as AF and Navy plus SMU and Memphis want to move to a P5 conference. That leaves 2 more teams to fill the void. According to SOS both AF & Navy's schedules are much weaker than Army's schedule and that's with Army playing 2 FCS teams. One FCS team a year is more than enough to play. So if Navy can't finish with a 6-6 record with most of the competitive teams gone then there's something really wrong. Maybe, just maybe, eventually every team will be forced in a conference not because they want to, but out of necessity.
As I have said a couple of years ago you will be lucky if there's 2 or 3 P5 conferences left in college football and the rest will be all G5 conferences. Well basically there's now just Big 10 & SEC and just so you know there's no such thing as P6 conference. PAC 12 poof! Gone with the wind. Big 12 with the top teams gone I consider them a P5 conference in name only.
In the future there will be G5 teams that will want to be independent because of what you pointed out earlier flexibility and no advancement in a bottom feeder G5 conference.
Just like technology & AI changes are coming fast and furious in college football so don't be surprised if this is only the beginning of realignment that has a potential to change it's form almost every year.