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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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Rk | Conf. Rk | Team | Ret Prod | Off | Rk | Def | Def Rk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 1 | USF | 67% | 69% | 22 | 66% | 19 |
| 27 | 2 | UTSA | 64% | 82% | 2 | 46% | 89 |
| 35 | 3 | Navy | 63% | 74% | 14 | 52% | 73 |
| 66 | 4 | Temple | 55% | 65% | 39 | 45% | 96 |
| 76 | 5 | Tulane | 52% | 49% | 84 | 56% | 57 |
| 77 | 6 | Tulsa | 52% | 46% | 93 | 58% | 51 |
| 88 | 7 | N Texas | 49% | 44% | 98 | 55% | 65 |
| 101 | 8 | Army | 43% | 36% | 120 | 51% | 80 |
| 103 | 9 | ECU | 43% | 51% | 77 | 35% | 117 |
| 105 | 10 | UAB | 43% | 43% | 103 | 43% | 101 |
| 110 | 11 | FAU | 41% | 50% | 79 | 32% | 127 |
| 113 | 12 | Rice | 41% | 36% | 122 | 46% | 91 |
| 115 | 13 | Memphis | 40% | 39% | 114 | 41% | 108 |
| 118 | 14 | Charlotte | 38% | 35% | 123 | 40% | 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.
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.
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.
For the fourth time in program history, East Carolina won the AAC Tournament Championship, taking down Tulane in the championship game. The Green Wave had won the last two tournament titles. ECU won the season before that in 2022, as well as in 2015 and 2018.
The Pirates had a relatively down season by their standards in league play, finishing 13-14 in the regular season before making their run through the field in Clearwater. They went undefeated during the tournament, beating Charlotte, South Florida (twice) and Tulane.
The Pirates will be the No. 3 seed in the Conway regional. Joining them there will be their first opponent, No. 2 Seed Florida, as well as No. 4 Seed Fairfield and host, No. 1 Seed Coastal Carolina.
This is ECU’s 21st appearance in the NCAA Tournament in the past 26 seasons. ECU went 1-2 against Coastal Carolina in the regular season and did not play Florida or Fairfield.
The Conway Regional is paired with the Auburn Regional, home of No. 4 National Seed, Auburn.
The Roadrunners won the regular season championship, proving enough along the way to earn an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament. This is UTSA’s first regional appearance via an at-large selection with their previous two appearances as conference tournament champions.
UTSA is the No. 2 Seed in the Austin Regional, home of host Texas, the No. 2 national seed in the tournament. Also in the region are No. 3 Seed Kansas State, whom the Roadrunners will face in their opening game, and No. 4 Seed Houston Christian.
UTSA has met two of its regional members on the diamond already this year. The Roadrunners beat Texas 8-7, in Austin, and defeated Houston Christian, 12-1.
The Austin Regional is paired with the Los Angeles Regional, home of No. 15 National Seed, UCLA.