The hits keep coming.

If Houston, Cincinnati and Central Florida all having left the American Athletic Conference for the Big 12 wasn’t enough of a blow, the gut-punch came with Friday’s news that SMU is now officially headed out of the AAC and into the ACC.

Memphis, again, is left in the conference realignment dust.

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The first time, in 2021, the Tigers gave it their best shot – and just weren’t judged to be Big 12-ready.

Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium desperately was, and still is, in need of major renovations. The University of Memphis’ academic reputation needed to be bolstered. NCAA compliance issues hung overhead.

This time, it wasn’t so much about all that.

The NCAA cloud has dissipated. Punishment for rules violations has been doled. Basketball coach Penny Hardaway is benched for the upcoming season’s first three games, and there’s nothing else — at least not that we know about — for the Tigers to worry about on that front at this point. Other sanctions were relatively minimal.

In December 2021, about two months after the Big 12 added the AAC three, Memphis announced that the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education had named it an R1 institution, putting the school in the nation’s highest tier of research universities.

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It’s been attained. Now it must be maintained. But at least it’s a start.

Then there’s the stadium, owned by the City of Memphis.

Renovation is coming. Soon. Really, it is.

The exact amount of state-fund money the city will allocate for the project remains to-be-announced, but — when combined with other revenue streams, including a likely contribution from the university itself — it should be in excess of the high end of the $150 million to $200 million initially estimated when plans were announced a year ago.

“We’ve shared different possibilities with the city about what we feel like we could help bring to the table,” Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch said earlier this week, “but we really need the city to make that final determination on their allocation first before we get into that.

“And I think it’s critical that we invest as much as possible because as costs continue to escalate, we can see the pinch on the plans on everything we’re trying to do, and it’s also why it’s critically important that we move forward as quickly as possible because that’s going to do nothing but get worse.”

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In the minds of some, however, there’s at least one more major hurdle standing between Memphis and a higher-echelon conference.

It’s the reputation of the city, chiefly defined by rampant crime and poverty concerns.

Not everyone outside of Memphis may think it’s a problem, but anyone around town the last few years should be sensitive to the subject.

“Are there stereotypes and issues about us? There are, just like there are anywhere else,” Veatch said. “But I think the positives far outweigh the negatives.”

Middle-of-the-country geography. A sizeable media market. A winning-more-than-losing football and basketball tradition in recent years.

“Are there stereotypes and issues about us? There are, just like there are anywhere else. But I think the positives far outweigh the negatives.”

Laird Veatch
University of Memphis athletic director

All would seem to work in Memphis’ favor, civic supporters suggest.

Still, it’s an uphill battle.

SMU essentially bought its way into the ACC, using the private university’s vast fiscal resources to overcome foregoing years and years of broadcast revenue — the bread and butter of most athletic department budgets — just so it could score a key to the exclusive club.

Memphis simply doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to do that.

That leaves the Tigers in a remade ACC, which added six Conference USA schools after losing Houston, Cincinnati and UCF, but it at least still has Tulane — No. 24 in the 2023 Associated Press preseason Top 25 — in its ranks.

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At July’s AAC’s Media Day in Fort Worth, Commissioner Mike Aresco essentially threw up his hands and said there’s not much he can do to prevent schools from leaving the conference for greener pastures.

On Friday, he issued a statement indicating the league knew SMU’s departure was possible and that it has no interest in expanding westward — not even with the Pac-12 two remaining leftovers, Washington State and Oregon State, still up for grabs.

“Instead,” Aresco said in his statement, “we plan to focus any expansion efforts on schools that allow for sensible and sustainable competition and student-athlete well-being within our strong geographic footprint.”

That’s what a majority of AAC presidents and chancellors evidently want because they’re the ones who ultimately call the shots.

So no Wazzou, no Beavers for you.

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No trying to pick off a few Mountain West teams from the Pacific time zone either.

Rather, multiple reports Friday indicated the AAC will first target Army to replace SMU. It makes sense for the league as a whole, especially with Navy already in the conference.

But does any of this make sense for Memphis?

Will the Tigers, who open Coach Ryan Silverfield’s fourth season Saturday night against Bethune-Cookman, simply stay in the AAC and accept their fate? Or will they go, if there’s even anyone better out there who will have them?

For Veatch, it’s all about finding a platform that best places Memphis on the right side of the ongoing split among FBS football programs.

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It could be that only two 20-conferences — a bolstered SEC and the Big Ten — rule the roost, and the rest are left to land in multiple lower-level tiers.

Memphis is best-served landing in whatever winds up being tier 2.

Maybe the Tigers can someday go back to playing some of the current Big 12 or ACC programs that don’t make the cut to 40 or 60 or whatever it winds up being. Worst case in that instance: They’re at least playing the likes of Tulane and Southern Miss in the future rather than having a football schedule loaded with the Middle Tennessee’s and MAC schools of the college football world.

As for moving up, Memphis’ best-case scenario now might be to hope that some combination of Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina and maybe even Miami and/or Duke soon find new homes and that the remaining ACC schools deem the Tigers worthy of a call-up.

At this point, with so much disappointment fresh in the rearview mirror, it may seem like a far-fetched notion.

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But it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Clemson, FSU and UNC all voted against adding Cal, Stanford and SMU, and two of those three — most likely Florida State and Clemson — could be prime candidates to jump should the SEC decide to expand again beyond adding Texas and Oklahoma in 2024.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said during the league’s Media Days in July in Nashville that the league isn’t looking to expand.

There’s no indication that stance has changed, even with the Pac-12 disintegrating as USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon all prepare to head to the Big Ten next year; Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah will soon move to the Big 12; and Stanford and Cal are now ACC-bound.

But the realignment merry-go-round hasn’t stopped spinning just yet, and it would not be a shock to see some more movement with multiple teams moving out of the ACC sooner rather than later.

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“I think the thought about being on ‘the right side’ of however the conference realignment thing lands over time — so, call it the next handful of years, whatever that is — is really important to everyone, and I think that’s why you see a lot of the change and movement you’re seeing now,” Veatch said last Monday, perhaps foreshadowing SMU’s exit.

“(It’s) because people are projecting forward, and they’re seeing that the landscape is changing dramatically, which also speaks to why I believe this thing is far from over ... and why we cannot let up and think that, ‘Well, if something doesn’t happen this summer,’ that it’s not going to happen next summer or the summer after that or the summer after that if we keep investing, if we keep winning, which we know is part of our obligation, and if fans show up and if they watch it on TV,” Veatch said.

“Those are key factors for what we’re doing,” Veatch added. “So we’ve got to keep the pressure on, keep moving forward and not give up, which I know that’s not in our DNA anyway.”

With as many hits as the Tigers have sustained lately, they should be accustomed to getting back up off the mat and giving it the ol’ college try.

Again.