6. American Athletic Conference
Order is restored here. The American Athletic Conference provided a few scares early, dropping it down among the non-Power Five conference teams. But things are back to normal after this past weekend, when the AAC went back to being able to try to make the case that it is a major conference.
East Carolina showed made the biggest splash. After playing South Carolina tough two weeks ago and gaining respect by beating Virginia Tech last week, the Pirates showed that they are legit by blowing out North Carolina, blowing them out so bad that you wonder how a school looking that bad could be guilty of any kind of academic fraud. Yes, Tulane and SMU had bad losses, but they were to Duke and Texas A&M, to very good teams.
Houston, meanwhile, had a dominant win against UNLV, and Memphis continues to show that it is getting better as a football program after beating Middle Tennessee in a blowout on Saturday. The improvement of the Tigers shows the improvement of the AAC as a whole. Finally, East Carolina’s win has vaulted them into the Top 25, making them the only non-Power Five school deserving of that respect.