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QB Flux marks 2025 American Athletic Conference Landscape

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New faces and unknown commodities mark the state of quarterback play in the American Athletic Conference in 2025.

The days of running it back with the same starting quarterback at the Group of 5 level might not be over just yet, but they’re certainly becoming less and less frequent as player movement accelerates and the college football world becomes more connected and informed. That new-world reality is particularly stark when assessing the American Athletic Conference quarterback landscape for the upcoming 2025 season.

Among the 14 AAC teams, three distinct categories can be defined.

Starting Fresh

The AAC will be replacing some marquee names at the position in 2025. Seth Hennigan has finally run out of eligibility following a record-setting career at Memphis. Tulane’s Darrien Mensah was one of the more high-profile transfer stories of the offseason, signing with Duke. Potential Heisman darkhorse Bryson Daley has graduated from Army and the gunslinging Chandler Morris is no longer at North Texas.

Conservatively, that list includes four of the top six players at the position from a season ago. Tack on roster reshuffling at Charlotte, Rice and Florida Atlantic and you’ve got seven of the 14 programs in the league who will be starting new quarterbacks in 2025. When it comes time to sort out a potential pecking order the sheer number of new faces at the most important position will make that a challenge.

Returning, but Unrefined

Consistency, especially at the quarterback position, is usually viewed as a positive and while that’s probably the case for the next batch of program’s it’s not as if the guys they’re bringing back are slam dunk, top-of-the-line Group of 5 quarterbacks.

Temple (Evan Simon), UAB (Jalen Kitna), Tulsa (Kirk Francis) and East Carolina (Kaitin Houser) make up the returning quarterbacks who produced mixed results at their programs a season ago. Francis and Simon completed less than 60 percent of their passes, Kitna and Houser threw double-digit interceptions. Add on coaching changes at Temple and ECU (albeit, hiring their interim head coach) and you’ve got more uncertainty to deal with.

Any or all of those four players may improve their game in 2025. That’s what their respective staffs will be expecting. But it’s not a sure thing and there’s no guarantee this group isn’t better than some of the reshuffling the programs in the first group did during the offseason.

Returning Studs

Which brings us to the shortest list: returning studs. At the forefront of this group is Navy quarterback Blake Horvath and UTSA signal caller Owen McCown. Horvath spurred one of the more improbable turn-around seasons in the AAC last year, leading Navy to 10 wins. McCown led all returning AAC passers with 3,422 yards passing last season and 25 touchdowns.

South Florida’s Byrum Brown gets a nod in this group, but with an asterisk of sorts. He was tremendous in 2023 before missing most of 2024 with an injury. When he did get on the field, he wasn’t nearly as impressive. He deserves at least some benefit of the doubt that a fully healthy version of himself belongs in this group, but even with him included, the list of bonafide stars at this position is extremely thin.

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College Football Returning Production woes in the AAC

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Returning Production, or the lack thereof, is a clear hallmark of what life will be like in the AAC and the Group of 5/6 for college football going forward.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly updated his key college football metrics following the spring portal cycle and, usurpingly, the biggest brands from the SEC and the Big Ten sat atop most of the rankings. What didn’t stand out as clearly at the time — at least to my naked eye — was the impact the modern landscape has had on team building at the lower levels of the sport.

Returning Production seeks to approximate the meaningful contributors from last year’s team who are still on the roster for the upcoming season. It’s not a perfect measure — returning every player from a bad team still likely leads to a bad team — but it does demonstrate which programs pose to gain the most from continuity and experience.

As I began my preparations for the upcoming season preview series, I noticed just how little returning production most AAC teams had. So many key pieces are gone, either to the Transfer Portal of the NFL Draft, leaving the AAC flush with teams installing so many new players this offseason.

Connelly puts just seven AAC programs in the top 100 nationally in returning production. Three crack the top 60. Here’s the full list:

Nat. RkAAC RkTeamConfRet ProdOff RkDef Def Rk
111USF AAC67%69%2266%19
272UTSA AAC64%82%246%89
353Navy AAC63%74%1452%73
664Temple AAC55%65%3945%96
765Tulane AAC52%49%8456%57
776Tulsa AAC52%46%9358%51
887N TexasAAC49%44%9855%65
1018Army AAC43%36%12051%80
1039ECU AAC43%51%7735%117
10510UAB AAC43%43%10343%101
11011FAU AAC41%50%7932%127
11312Rice AAC41%36%12246%91
11513Memphis AAC40%39%11441%108
11814Charlotte AAC38%35%12340%109

It’s no coincidence that the top three programs (USF, UTSA and Navy) all return their starting quarterbacks and several key skill players. That USF also brings back so many key defenders gives the Bulls a better starting point, at least from a roster construction standpoint, than most if not all of their conference peers.

How this plays out on the field this fall remains to be seen, but the era of slow builds and roster continuity seems long past, at least at this level of the sport. When your program does get the luxury of “running it back”, you better not miss. The odds of you getting that much continuity again soon are slim to none.

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AAC Baseball Roundup: UTSA falls in Super Regional Play

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AAC Baseball had two representatives in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. UTSA made it to the second weekend before falling to UCLA in Super Regional Play.

UTSA

UTSA made quick work of the Austin regional, defeating Kansas State in their opening game to set up a rematch with the regional host, Texas. The Roadrunners then defeated the Longhorns for the second time that season, following up on a regular-season win over the Horns several weeks beforehand. That forced Texas to the loser’s bracket.

Texas would make it back to the regional championship, only for UTSA to beat them for a third and final time to punch their ticket to the Super Regional round.

UCLA took care of business in their own Regional round, setting up the matchup with UTSA with a trip to the College World Series on the line. UTSA led early in the first game, taking a 2-0 lead before UCLA leveled the score after the third inning. The Bruins went in front on a sacrifice fly in the fourth, adding a few insurance runs late to win the game, 5-2.

It was all Bruins in Game 2. UCLA scratched across one run apiece in the fourth and fifth innings before breaking through with two runs in the eighth and three more in the ninth, shutting out UTSA 7-0 in the finale to take the series.

East Carolina

Despite entering the postseason with little fanfare, ECU made some noise with an explosive win over Florida in their opening game, sending the 2-seed Gators to the loser’s bracket. The Pirates would join them a day later, falling to regional host Coastal Carolina to setup a rematch with Florida. They beat the Gators again, earning them another shot at the hosts.

A pitcher’s duel ensued with Coastal Carolina edging ECU 1-0 in Game 6 to knock the Pirates out of the postseason.

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Judge Approves Historic House v. NCAA Settlement

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Following a lengthy process, a federal judge on Friday granted final approval of the House v. NCAA Settlement, paving the way for schools to pay athletes directly.

In a landmark decision that will alter the landscape of collegiate sports, Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California approved a far-reaching settlement of the House v. NCAA case on Friday. The settlement touches on a host of important issues:

1. $2.8 billion in back pay to former NCAA athletes

The settlement will reward damages to athletes dating back to 2016 who were not allowed to sign NIL deals and thus were not able to profit in the same way current athletes are able. The bulk of this money is expected to go to former football and men’s basketball players.

2. $20.5 million in revenue sharing per school

A formula derived from a percentage of average power school revenues will establish a maximum revenue sharing pool for each institution, expected to be around $20.5 million for the upcoming 2025-2026 academic year. Schools are not required to spend this much — many won’t — and distributions are expected to weigh heavily toward football.

3. Roster Limits

All roster spots can now be given scholarships with defined limits for each sport. For example, football rosters are now capped at 105 players (previously 85), and any number of those players are allowed to be given scholarships. Baseball (previously allowed 11.7 scholarships) can now scholarship as many as 34 players.

4. NIL Clearinghouse

A Deloitte-run NIL clearinghouse will be established. All third-party deals of at least $600 must go through that clearinghouse to be either approved or disapproved, with mechanisms existing for resubmission and alteration of said deals.

What’s Next?

Ross Dellenger (Yahoo) and The Athletic have written in more detail about the settlement. The ramifications of this massive decision are only just beginning. More details will come out over the days and weeks ahead.

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2025 AAC Baseball Tournament: Preview, schedule, how to watch

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The 2025 AAC Baseball Tournament is set to begin in Clearwater, FL on Tuesday. Here’s how to watch and what to look for this week.

The field wasn’t finalized until the final weekend of the regular season, but now eight teams have secured their spots in the 2025 AAC Baseball Tournament. An automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and hopes of playing for a trip to the College World Series are at stake. The bottom two teams in the standings: Memphis and UAB, will be watching from home.

All games will be streamed on ESPN+ with the exception of the tournament championship, available on ESPN News. The tournament runs from Tuesday, May 20 to Sunday, May 25. The full schedule and updated bracket are available on the American Conference Baseball Tournament website.

Assessing the field

The favorite | UTSA has lost four conference games this season. To think of them picking up a pair of defeats in a few short days in Clearwater seems unlikely, which makes them the easy chalk pick to win it all. If there’s any blemish on their resume, it’s their record outside of San Antonio (17-9) which is merely very good as opposed to their sterling 25-2 mark at home.

The contender | Charlotte was in a gaggle of teams a few games back of UTSA with a month left in the regular season and while the 49ers couldn’t catch the Roadrunners, they enter the tournament on a nine-game winning streak. Ace Blake Gillespie has the best ERA in the conference (2.53).

The dark horse | South Florida is one of two teams (UTSA being the other) that ranks inside the top three teams in the conference in batting average and pitching ERA. The Bulls have won four of their last five conference series and are among the most consistent teams in the conference, capable of grinding out wins.

The wild card | Florida Atlantic is going to live and die by the long ball. The Owls lead the league with 42 home runs in conference play and have allowed the fewest long balls as a pitching staff on the mound against league opponents (21). One swing of the bat can be extremely consequential in elimination-style tournaments making this team a dangerous out.

The bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Tuesday, May 20:

Game 1 – 9:00 AM | (5) Tulane vs (4) Florida Atlantic

Game 2 – approx. 12:30 PM | (1) UTSA vs (8) Rice

Game 3 – 4:00 PM | (7) Wichita State vs (2) Charlotte

Game 4 – approx. 7:30 PM | (6) East Carolina vs (3) South Florida

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