Similar to the Sun Belt, the American has adjusted its schedule on the fly to account for game postponements.
The league officially moved six games around, which are in bold italicsbelow.
Saturday, November 21
East Carolina at Temple (Noon, ESPN+)
Stephen F. Austin at Memphis (Noon, ESPN+)
Cincinnati at UCF (3:30 p.m., ESPN)
Friday, November 27
UCF at USF (3:30 p.m., ESPN)
Saturday, November 28
Cincinnati at Temple
SMU at East Carolina (Noon, ESPN+)
Memphis at Navy
Tulsa at Houston
Saturday, December 5
Houston at SMU
Memphis at Tulane
Tulsa at Navy
Saturday, December 12
Cincinnati at Tulsa
Houston at Memphis
Navy at Army (3 p.m., CBS)
Saturday, December 19
American Athletic Conference Championship
Two interesting #Nuggets here, both involving Cincinnati.
First, the Bearcats are now off on Dec. 5. As is BYU.
Both teams are attempting to stage Cinderella runs at the College Football Playoff, and now the fates have offered them a once-in-a-pandemic chance to schedule a game against each other. Cincinnati is 7-0 and ranked No. 7; BYU is 8-0 and No. 8. A Cincy-BYU game would be the biggest game of the day, worthy of GameDay and all that goes along with it.
There's a compelling argument to be made Cincinnati doesn't need this game. Luke Fickell's team is ahead of BYU in the AP poll and has a tougher schedule ahead, meaning they could just win the games they're supposed to and a New Year's Six bowl awaits them. If a Playoff bid is off the board, Cincinnati would have nothing to gain and everything to lose here.
But there's no reason to decide right now. The first CFP Top 25 comes out Tuesday night. Both sides can wait until after they learn how the selection committee views them and then act appropriately.
And how crazy is it that we're having this conversation in the first place? A sport that convinced itself it needs a decade's worth of advance notice to schedule games before the pandemic is now talking about setting up a Top 10 clash with two weeks (or less) to spare.
Finally, the Cincinnati-Tulsa game originally slated for Dec. 5 has been pushed back to Dec. 12. If the season ended today, the American Championship would be... Cincinnati-Tulsa, meaning we'd get an immediate rematch.
This would be the first time that happened in the American since, uh, 2019. Last year, Memphis beat Cincinnati 34-24 on Nov. 29 and then 29-24 on Dec. 7.
The pandemic forced the AAC to drop its divisional structure for 2020, but it should be return in 2021. While we are very much on Team No Divisions, maybe the 2021 AAC schedule should keep the East teams in the East and the West in the West to end next season.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.