The AAC is getting worse and Memphis football, basketball are starting to feel it | Giannotto

American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco can’t come out and just say it about the three schools leaving the league for the greener pastures of the Big 12. He can’t explicitly say he wants anyone but them to win this season; certainly not on media day. Heck, the checks from Houston, Cincinnati and UCF for their exit fees might not have even cleared yet.

But Memphis football coach Ryan Silverfield could.

For a brief moment, upon being asked about the Tigers facing Houston and UCF one last time at home this season, he smirked and let his guard down.

“There’d be nothing sweeter than to send those teams out with a loss,” Silverfield said.

In one comment, he encapsulated the odd and precarious existence for those being left behind in the AAC.

Over the course of an hour Thursday morning, the league dropped its preseason football poll and the Memphis men’s basketball team released its nonconference schedule. Each separately underscored the reality already beginning to take shape around the Tigers.

UPDATE: Why Memphis gave football coach Ryan Silverfield an unannounced extra year on contract

OPINION: Ryan Silverfield's contract doesn't mean the stakes changed for Memphis football

Houston was tabbed as the preseason favorite in football, just ahead of Cincinnati and UCF. Memphis was picked to finish fifth for the second year in a row. It means the three schools that finished in the top three in the standings last season and the three schools picked to finish in the top three this season are the same three schools bolting.

Memphis basketball, meanwhile, unveiled an aggressive schedule in which it will open on the road for the first time in 30 years. It includes five games against SEC opponents and just three games against clearly inferior competition. On paper, it’s the most enticing nonconference slate the Tigers have faced in years, filled with the regional matchups coach Penny Hardaway has long said he wants to play.

It’s also the type of nonconference schedule they’re potentially going to have to play every year.

The three schools leaving the AAC had an average KenPom rating of 69 last season. The six schools joining the league beginning next season (UAB, UTSA, Rice, Charlotte, FAU and North Texas) had an average KenPom rating of 161, including four teams that were 200 or worse in the metric.

No matter how admirable Aresco’s attempts are at spinning this into something positive, the league is getting worse.

“Now that they’ve signed a piece of paper,” he said of Houston, UCF and Cincinnati, “they’re suddenly P5 and worthy of serious playoff consideration … Transformed by signing a piece of paper, it makes no sense.”

INSIDER ACCESS: Sign up for the Memphis Tigers Basketball Insider text group with Jason Munz

SCHEDULE: Memphis football, MTSU agree to home-and-home series beginning in 2024

It only makes sense in the greed-driven world of college athletics that is spinning out of control thanks to conference realignment. But this is the world in which the new-look AAC will reside. A world, by the way, that no longer includes any conversation about the AAC becoming a “Power Six” conference in football.

The bigger question is whether it can maintain its spot ahead of the Mountain West and Sun Belt conferences, particularly when it comes to earning a New Year’s Six bowl game.

Those implications are of far greater importance for Memphis than the curious decision to release its basketball nonconference schedule on the same day that had been earmarked for weeks as a spotlight for football.

Though the six new AAC schools come with some bigger media markets, they don’t come with much football tradition and they don’t seem to improve the basketball product, either. It’s why everybody else in the AAC wishes they were in the same position as Houston, Cincinnati and UCF right now. It’s why this feels like a reset and not a reload.

“We were given up for dead 10 years ago and look what we did,” Aresco said, referencing the league’s origins out of the ashes of the old Big East. “Nobody expected it, so I think we can do it again.”

Hopefully, he's right. Or hopefully, Memphis doesn't get stuck in this current version of the league for long. There might be only one reasonable recourse at the conference’s disposal. Aresco won’t say it, but we will.

Someone other than Houston, Cincinnati or UCF needs to win the league this year. In football. In men’s and women’s basketball. In baseball. In as many sports as possible. For perception's sake, at least.

Nothing can necessarily stabilize this situation. But nothing, as Silverfield put it, would be sweeter at this point.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: AAC is getting worse. Memphis football, basketball starting to feel it