Welcome back to the Tigers Football Insider, where we bring you the latest news and analysis from The Daily Memphian’s Frank Bonner II, Geoff Calkins and John Martin each week.

The American Athletic Conference will look different following the 2022 season after Cincinnati, Houston and UCF move to the Big 12.

Those three teams will leave on July 1, 2023 while UAB, FAU, Charlotte, North Texas, Rice and UTSA will join the AAC on the same day. What does the new collection of teams mean for the Tigers?

With Memphis still trying to stay in the mix for any future conference realignment conversations, a good look for the Tigers would be to stay near the top of the conference standings once the new six teams arrive.

Some of the top hitters in the conference will be walking away after this season which should set the Tigers up to not only continue being competitive in the conference, but should have the chance to be a top-3 team on a consistent basis.

That’s not to say that the incoming teams won’t make it hard on anybody. UTSA showed what it was capable of last season beating the Tigers at home in route to a 12-2 season. Memphis will also play North Texas this year which will give a little preview of what to expect once the Mean Green joins the league.

Rice is the only one of the six teams that has not qualified for a bowl game in the last five years. UAB and FAU, who have both won two bowl games during that span, are the only teams to have won a bowl game in the last five years.

North Texas joins UAB as the two schools to have played in four bowl games in the last five years. North Texas just hasn’t won any of them. Three of the six teams have played in at least three bowl games with FAU winning two of its three appearances in the last five years. 

These six teams will definitely look to be competitive and teams like SMU and Navy are still in the league. But the Tigers should fair well competitively with this new-look AAC conference.

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