Six schools, including Florida Atlantic, Charlotte and North Texas, UTSA (Rice), UAB, have accepted invitations from the American Athletic Conference. The league announced this Thursday.
Although no date has been established for schools to join the conference yet, ESPN reported that a source said that they would join in the 2023-24 season.
After all the realignment announcements have been made, the American 14 basketball and football teams will be added.
Mike Aresco, American commissioner, stated that he was delighted to welcome six of the most prestigious universities to the American Athletic Conference. This strategic expansion will help us achieve many goals as we move the conference into its second decade. We have added excellent institutions in major cities that have made investments in the best possible competition. We have increased geographical concentration, which will be especially helpful for the conference's men and women's basketball teams and Olympic sports teams.
American will replace UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati. They were accepted into the Big 12 last month, after the conference discovered that Oklahoma and Texas had been transferred to the SEC.
AAC bylaws state that these schools will be leaving on July 1, 2024. However, Aresco informed ESPN in September that they would consider negotiating a lower exit fee to accommodate their departures.
These schools will be joining American holdovers East Carolina (football only), Memphis, Navy, South Florida, SMU and Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, Tulsa, and Wichita State (which doesn't play in football). These additions will bring the American four members to Texas. After being based in Providence, Rhode Island, the league office moved to Dallas.
Conference USA now has eight members, as the six schools have all left. The Sun Belt stated that it is open to expanding beyond the 10 current football members and that some of Conference USA's eight remaining schools could be geographically compatible.
In 2013, the American was born from the collapse of Big East football and rebuilding around mainly Conference USA schools. The American was the strongest of the five Group of 5 conferences in football during the College Football Playoff era. The American has been awarded the New Year's Six bowl slot five times in seven seasons. This award goes to the top-ranked group of 5 conference champion.
Four of these championships were won however by schools heading to the Big 12.
This report was based on information from ESPN's Heather Dinich, and The Associated Press.
