The American Athletic Conference plays its second season with a 14-team configuration in 2024 and its first under its current membership. The American welcomed Army to the conference as a football-playing member as of July 1, 2024.
The 2024 season will be the first to include a 12-team College Football Playoff. The top five conference champions will be included in the 12-team field, while seven spots will be filled with at-large teams as chosen by the CFP Selection Committee.
The American Athletic Conference has had a team finish in the top 10 of the national polls six times in the league’s first 11 seasons, most recently in 2022, when Tulane finished at No. 9.
American Athletic Conference teams will play a combined 10 nonconference games against teams ranked in the preseason top 25 polls in the 2024 season. That ledger includes games against three of the top six teams and four of the top 10.
In the College Football Playoff era (since 2014), The American has a combined 98-54 record against non-autonomous FBS conferences (a .645 winning percentage).
South Florida’s six-game improvement from 2022 (when the Bulls went 1-11) to 2023 (7-6) marked the second-best turnaround by an NCAA FBS team last season. Northwestern improved by seven wins last year.
Memphis was bowl-eligible for the 10th consecutive season in 2023, joining Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa and Wisconsin as the only teams nationally to make 10 straight bowl appearances.
Memphis has scored at least 20 points in 26 consecutive games, marking the longest active streak among FBS teams
Memphis QB Seth Henigan is the only fourth-year player in FBS who will start at quarterback for the same school in all four years.
South Florida QB Byrum Brown was one of two FBS players to finish with at least 3,000 passing yards and 800 rushing yards in 2023. The other was Heisman Trophy-winner Jayden Daniels of LSU.
UAB QB Jacob Zeno ranked second nationally and set the American Athletic Conference single-season record by completing 73.6% of his passes in 2023 (279 of 379). Zeno trailed only Oregon’s Bo Nix nationally (77.4%).
UTSA is a combined 31-9 in the last three seasons.
Tulane has gone 23-5 in the last two seasons. New Green Wave head coach Jon Sumrall went 23-4 in two years at Troy.
If QB E.J. Warner starts for Rice this season, he would be the first player to start at quarterback for two American Athletic Conference schools in a career. Warner was a two-year starter at Temple before transferring to Rice.
UTSA plays four of its 12 regular-season games against teams nicknamed ‘Owls’ (Florida Atlantic, Rice and Temple from The American and Kennesaw State in nonconference play). Army plays The American’s three Owl-monikered teams in succession from Sept. 7 to Sept. 26.
Under its reconfigured membership, American Athletic Conference schools are located in five of the nation’s top 10 Nielsen media markets. The American has a presence in 12 of the top 50 markets, while all 14 football-playing schools are situated among the top 103 markets.
The 2024 American Athletic Conference Football Championship is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 6, and will be televised in prime time on ABC.
