The American Athletic Conference basketball tournament is underway in Fort Worth, and commissioner Mike Aresco celebrated the occasion by dropping this unprompted four paragraph statement:
In recent weeks I have seen references to the “Power Five” in interviews and public conversations which suggest that the P5 is all that matters in college athletics. This is profoundly misguided, especially in the current environment.
As it now stands, in terms of competitiveness, the gap between the number two and three conferences is far greater than between the number three conference and The American. There are P5 conferences that have lost the marquee teams which gave them that status in the first place and whose value today is much harder to define. There are P5 conferences that have added multiple teams from The American and other conferences among this group that have discussed adding schools from our conference. If the P5 label means that you are vastly different, why is this so?
Six American Athletic Conference schools were once BCS or Southwest Conference teams. If the difference is so vast, why does The American have four New Year’s Day football wins over top-10 teams and dozens of regular season football wins against the labeled P5. If the gap is so vast, how could The American have won a national championship in men’s basketball and three national championships in women’s basketball? How could The American have been to a Final Four, an Elite Eight, multiple Sweet Sixteens, and have had a College Football Playoff team? How could The American currently be home to the number one men’s basketball team in the country? At this moment in history, separating conferences with a so-called “Power Five” moniker lacks meaning in the context of competitiveness.
It is troubling to see media-manufactured labels, confirmed by college sports leadership, which do not reflect the reality of college sports going forward. This creates a divide at five that should not exist and creates harmful effects. Documents have recently come to light that describe a P5 legislative initiative around NIL that has not been shared with the wider membership. This is not a healthy approach, as such an initiative should be a collaborative effort among the wider Division I membership, including all FBS conferences. These five conferences do not speak for all of college athletics. The Power Five and Group of Five labels should be discarded and confined to collegiate history. There are 10 FBS conferences, some more successful than others, but all sharing similar goals, experiencing similar challenges and competing successfully against each other.
A few things:
1) I'll never fault anyone for standing up for their kids, their teams, or their schools, and Aresco certainly does that here. Aresco joined the conference after a career as an executive at ESPN and CBS, so the importance of public perception will never be lost on him... even if this particular attempt at influencing public perception may not go as planned. If I was better at the Internet, I'd get a funny AI voice to read Aresco's statement, then loop it into the boombox scene from Say Anything or the classical music scene from The Shawshank Redemption.
2) Aresco is correct that, moving forward, there will be no practical difference between the American and the so-called Power 5, at least in terms of access to the College Football Playoff. Beginning in 2024, the 12-team playoff will take the six highest-ranked conference champions, not the Power 5 champions plus the highest-ranked G5 champion.
3) Aresco is also correct that the Big 12, ACC and Pac-12 (though he didn't mention them by name) are not as strong as they once were. Starting in 2024, the Big 12 will have lost the top half of its original roster. All anyone wants to talk about in regard to the ACC and Pac-12 is how bad their TV deal is or might be. The Big Ten and SEC have separated themselves from the rest of college football, at the direct expense of their so-called peers in the Power 5.
4) All that said, come on, Commissioner. The men's and women's basketball national champion to which Aresco alludes (UConn) left for the Big East. The College Football Playoff participant (Cincinnati) is on its way to the Big 12. So is the number one men's basketball team in the country (Houston).
Every school American school that had the opportunity to leave for a so-called Power 5 conference took it. Every school currently in the American would leave for the Big 12, the ACC, or the rest if they had a chance. And while it's true that every Big 12, ACC, etc., school would jump at a Big Ten or SEC invitation, the former is also true.
The American should be proud of all that it's accomplished in its decade of life. AAC teams are 3-4 (.429) in New Year's Six/CFP games, a winning percentage that beats the Pac-12 (.286) and ACC (.400) and is close to the Big 12 (.471). The American has placed five schools into New Year's Six/CFP games, which far outpaces the rest of the so-called Group of 5 (Boise State, 2014; Western Michigan, 2016). The American is also the only so-called G5 conference to get a team into the 4-team Playoff.
Six schools are set to join the American this summer, and here's hoping they experience all the success they imagine and more. I say this as someone who, if given a magic wand to change anything in the world, would set the FBS alignment back to where it was circa 2002, and then fix world hunger with whatever juice the magic wand had left. The New World Order of Big Ten/SEC hegemony makes me just as queasy as it does Aresco and anyone else.
Aresco is fighting hard for his conference, but I'm not sure it will change any minds.