AAC Football Power Rankings 2017: Houston rising in Week 3

Through the first two weeks of the season, AAC football has been one of the most exciting conferences to watch thus far.

It’s been a very entertaining two weeks of football in the American Athletic Conference, though we haven’t seen much meaningful separation between the teams at the front of the pack. This is largely due to game cancellations that have affected almost half of the conference so far, but also a lack of jaw-dropping performances across the board, and a lot of teams struggling with opponents that we didn’t expect them to struggle with.

Without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s AAC Power Rankings. May the upcoming weeks bring us more clarity, but just as much excitement.

East Carolina only lost by 36 to West Virginia. This should not feel like a massive accomplishment, and yet it does.

UConn is undefeated through two weeks for only the second time in the last eight years (yes, they’ve only played one game so far. Shhhhhhhh). There is genuine reason to believe that they could move to 2-0 with a win against a very underwhelming Virginia squad. I have now hit my weekly quota of positive statements about UConn football.

The Bearcats were able to remove some of the bad taste from an ugly season-opening win against FCS cellar-dweller Austin Peay, hanging with Michigan in the Big House for the better part of three quarters before surrendering a pair of late touchdowns.

Cincy hasn’t shown much promise on offense to this point (read: none at all), but the defense already looks leagues better than last season under new coach Luke Fickell, and that should be enough to win a couple conference games. Anything more than that will require that the Bearcats find some sort of answer at quarterback.