P6? AP Polls and AAC Progression

[WaveProf]

The AP poll is admittedly a top-down way of looking at conference achievement, but I still thought it might be useful to see a year by year for the AAC for every year since Tulane joined. All are based on end-of-year

2014
Teams in Top 25: 1 (#25 Memphis)
Other teams getting votes: 0
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 2 (ranging from #16 Boise State** to #23 Marshall**)

2015
Teams in Top 25: 2 (#8 Houston, #18 Navy)
Other teams getting votes: 1 (Temple)
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 1 (#24 Western Kentucky)

2016
Teams in Top 25: 1 (#19 USF)
Other teams getting votes: 4 (Tulsa, Temple, Houston, Navy)
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 2 (ranging from #15 Western Michigan** to #25 SD State)

2017
Teams in Top 25: 3 (#6 UCF w/ 4 1st place votes, #21 USF, #25 Memphis)
Other teams getting votes: 0
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 1 (#22 Boise State)

2018
Teams in Top 25: 2 (#11 UCF, #24 Cincinnati)
Other teams getting votes: 0
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 3 (ranging from #18 Fresno to #23 Boise State)

2019
Teams in Top 25: 4 (#17 Memphis, #20 Navy, #21 Cincinnati, #24 UCF)
Other teams getting votes: 1 (SMU)
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 3 (ranging from #18 App st to #23 Boise State)

2020
Teams in Top 25: 1 (#8 Cincinnati)
Other teams getting votes: 2 (Tulsa and Memphis)
Other G5 teams in Top 25: 7 (ranging from #11 BYU to #25 Buffalo)

** indicates G5 teams ranked higher than any AAC team

[waverider]

Interesting stuff. 2020 was hampered by COVID opt-outs so it’s hard to say that the conference was overall worse than in 2019 plus I think it was more competitive (in the sec parity means they are all good, in the AAC/“p5” it means everyone was bad).

What that does tell us (to an extent) is that since 2016, the top AAC teams are better than the top teams from other G5 conferences.