A Look At The AAC

AAC Report: Coogs get back in the win column and some close calls in the AAC

Jermaine Every
Nov 27, 2019, 6:55 am
UH Football Official Twitter Account

Week 13 in the AAC was pretty darn good. Four of the six games were decided by one score. UH was almost in that category, but held on to win by 10. And can you call a game an upset if a ranked team lost to a conference opponent that had a 7-2 record coming into the game? Let's take a look at the week that was in the AAC:

UH improves to 4-7 with road win over Tulsa and get some good news this week

Turnovers were the name of the game in the Coogs road win at Tulsa. While they were outgained by 149 in total offense, the Coogs were a +3 in the turnover department. It also helped that Tulsa had -1 yard rushing. Most of that was due to their four sacks of Zach Smith. Smith, however, threw for 381 yards. But he was responsible for three of their four turnovers (two interceptions and a lost fumble). The Coogs will close out their season hosting a tough Navy team and their daunting rushing attack. While that may be enough to make some fans nervous, the team did get some good news this week as Fort Bend Foster's three star defensive tackle Chidozie Nwankwo announced his commitment to UH via a video on his Twitter account. I'm not saying he's the next Ed Oliver, but his potential is intriguing.

Other Key Results

Navy 35, #25 SMU 28: The Midshipmen played their brand of old school triple option football and ran over the Mustangs. Navy rushed for 378 yards and even mixed in 162 yards in the air. SMU was up 21-10 at the half and were essentially choked out in the second half.

#19 Cincinnati 15, Temple 13: The Bearcats went up 13-0 in the third quarter and maintained that lead into the fourth. That's when things got weird. Temple scored a touchdown, had the PAT blocked, and returned for two points. They scored another touchdown and made the PAT. Had the Owls made their first PAT, they could've potentially won the game.

#18 Memphis 49, USF 10: The Tigers set themselves up for an AAC Title game appearence with tihs win. Their run game ran wild and quarterback Brady White threw another two touchdown passes. They made light work of the Bulls and didn't allow themselves to be tripped up.

Stars of the Week

Patrick Taylor Jr, RB, Memphis: While Kenneth Gainwell may have had more rushing yards (128 to 95), Taylor had three rushing touchdowns and Gainwell had none. Advantage Taylor.

MalcolmPerry, QB, Navy: Perry had 195 yards and two touchdowns rushing, along with 162 yards and a touchdown passing in their win over SMU. He was singlehandedly responsible for the Midshipmen's biggest win of the season.

Doug Gabriel, QB, UCF: Gabriel was another quarterback who put his team on his back this week. He had 317 yards and a touchdown through the air along with 58 yards rushing in the Golden Knights' 34-31 win on the road over Tulane.

Games to Watch This Week

#19 Cincinnati @ #18 Memphis

Tulane @ SMU

Navy @ Houston

Players to Watch This Week

Brady White, Memphis: If the Tigers beat Cincinnati, they'll have a rematch against the Bearcats for the AAC Title game. But...

Malcolm Perry, Navy: ...if the Tigers lose and the Midshipmen beat SMU, they have a shot at the AAC Title game. But...

Shane Buechele, SMU: ...if the Mustangs can win and the Tigers lose, the Mustangs will go to the AAC Title game. Interresting final week in the AAC!

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12. UTEP

This wasn't their year and it ends even worse for these guys, losing to Rice. The Miners won one game over three months ago against Divison II Houston Baptist, and it's been a long season since then, but blissfully it's over.

11. RICE

Unbelievably we're here at the end of the season and Rice is sitting better here than they were at the end of the year last year. Improvement and growth is always the name of the game when you're bringing a program back from the dead and they did it here. Congrats Rice.

10. NORTH TEXAS

​Another week, another disappointing loss. While the odds were tilted slightly in favor of UNT, I didn't believe for a second this team would finish strong after losing to Rice last week. Honestly this is a program trending badly and trending in a bad direction, it would surprise me if there aren't talks of maybe changing play calling duties or coordinator responsibilities because what was working in the beginning is no longer working at all for these guys.

9. TEXAS STATE

This was a tough loss for a program that was trying to get right. Coming off the Appalachian State game where they weren't supposed to win at all, it's hard to believe this is a program that only a few weeks ago had managed to win big, but they had. Since then they've struggled to get leads and pull away from teams and this week was no different. A bad season is just good enough for fourth place in the Sun Belt West.

8. UTSA

That was a meaty loss to a better program. It's tough to be too critical of a program or say too many mean things when ultimately they weren't supposed to win this game or too many of the other ones they've been playing lately and perhaps it's time to re-evaluate where we consider The Roadrunners? Maybe next year, we'll start them much lower and just see how high they can rise.

7. TEXAS TECH

Well they certainly didn't come close to "getting" the Longhorns. A season that will be remembered for its close calls and almost wins ended on a heck of a thud with an old fashioned beating at the hands of Texas. Mercifully the season is over and The Red Raiders can stop looking back and thinking about what almost was.

6. HOUSTON

To score 41 in a loss has to be heartbreaking but to lose by 15 has to hurt a little more. Houston is now mercifully done, we'll see what happens with the redshirted quarterback now, we'll see what happens with this program coming into the off season. Will things start to trend a little better or is this rough season a sign of things to come under the new regime?

5. TCU

This is a confusing season for these guys, there's no way going 5-7 is a good feeling but considering how angry the back half of their schedule looked at one point, I think it's a good year. The loss to West Virginia isn't great but honestly there are some other games they should be more disappointed about. I think the Oklahoma game is a big one where there is some obvious disappointment. Yes they finished below .500 but they played good football at times and just managed to play bad football at the worst possible times.

4.  TEXAS

Well, well, well. Look who is feeling themselves again. The Longhorns haven't looked that good since they played Rice early on in the season. The desperately needed the win to clinch a winning season and now there are some people clamoring for a Academy Sports and Outdoors Texas Bowl between Texas and A&M which would be exciting but it's tough to gauge how Texas fans would handle losing this game considering how heartbreaking this season has been so far.

3. TEXAS A&M

Man that was a bad game against LSU. The Aggies have been defended all season long for the fact that their schedule is so tough, but in a lot of these games they've come up short. It's one thing to schedule the game but another to just go out there and play bad football. I still think their season is one worth celebrating but this kind of poor performance is not the thing to go out on.

2. SMU

This is the way you finish a season. The SMU Mustangs deserve all the accolades and kind words that can be said about them. They deserve all the great things and praise that are hopefully coming their way this off season. It's been a long road from the Death Penalty to here and it's worth celebrating. Congrats guys!

1. BAYLOR

Currently ranked ninth in the country and looking up at a top four that will likely only feature one SEC program this was the best chance for a program like Baylor to get into the dance. That one loss to Oklahoma isn't going to go away, record setting comeback in a situation where the win was needed. Now because of that one loss, the committees and voters don't have to put Baylor anywhere near the top 4.

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