AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE
ANNOUNCES 2018 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
The 2018 season begins Aug. 30
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Commissioner Mike Aresco has announced the American Athletic Conference’s 2018 97-game football schedule, including the 48-game conference schedule.
The 2018 season marks the fourth year of the conference’s four-year scheduling cycle in which each of the 12 teams in The American plays eight conference games – five against the other teams in its division and three against teams from the other division. The two division winners will meet Dec. 1 in the fourth American Athletic Conference Football Championship.
“I am especially pleased to announce the 2018 football schedule in the wake of the overwhelming success that our schools enjoyed last season,” said Aresco. “I applaud our coaches and athletic directors for continuing to challenge themselves against other top Power 6 opponents. Our intraconference schedule also provides a rigorous test for each of our 12 teams. We are pleased to continue our innovative scheduling protocols, including important Thursday and Friday games, which provide great value to our television partners, ESPN and CBS Sports Network.”
The American Athletic Conference enjoyed yet another banner year in 2017. UCF capped a 13-0 season with a win against Auburn in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, becoming the first FBS team in four years to finish without a loss and finishing No. 6 in the final Associated Press poll. The American placed three teams (UCF, USF, Memphis) in the final Associated Press and USA Today polls, sent seven of its 12 teams to bowl games (compiling a 3-1 record against other Power 6 opponents) and produced two NCAA consensus All-America selections (Houston DT Ed Oliver and Memphis WR Anthony Miller). The American joined the Big Ten and the Big 12 as the only conferences that have had at least three 10-win teams in each of the last two seasons.
The American will be the only FBS conference in 2018 to return its conference players of the year on offense (UCF QB McKenzie Milton), defense (Houston DT Ed Oliver) and special teams (Memphis WR Tony Pollard).
The 2018 season begins Aug. 30, when UCF – which received four first-place votes in the final Associated Press poll of 2017 – visits UConn in the first conference game of the season, while Tulane hosts Wake Forest in nonconference action. All 12 teams in The American will be in action during each of the first four weeks of the season.
Some highlights of the 2018 schedule include:
A series of four key Thursday-night conference games that will be televised on ESPN: Tulsa at Temple on Sept. 20 (pending the announcement of the NFL schedule); Tulsa at Houston on Oct. 4; Temple at UCF on Nov. 1; and Tulane at Houston on Nov. 15.
Three post-Thanksgiving Friday games on the final week of the regular season as USF hosts UCF in the War On I-4 showdown, while Houston is at Memphis and ECU is at Cincinnati. Last year’s Black Friday matchup between USF and UCF was widely considered the best college football game of the 2017 season and drew an average total viewing audience of 4.7 million viewers, including more than six million viewers for the final half-hour.
A total of 19 of The American’s 49 nonconference games will be against Power 6 opponents or Notre Dame. American Athletic Conference teams have a combined eight games against the ACC, four against the Big Ten, three against the Big 12, two against the Pac-12 and one each against the SEC and Notre Dame. The American has won 26 games against Power 6 opponents in the past three years and has three New Year’s Bowl wins against those opponents since 2014.
Five nonconference games against teams that were ranked among the top 25 in last year’s final Associated Press poll. Tulane visits No. 5 Ohio State Sept. 22, SMU hosts No. 9 TCU Sept. 7, Navy faces No. 11 Notre Dame Oct. 27 in San Diego, UConn visits No. 22 Boise State Sept. 8, and ECU is at No. 24 Virginia Tech Sept. 15.
The American Athletic Conference Football Championship, which has been broadcast on ABC in each of the last three years, is scheduled for Dec. 1 and will be televised either on either ABC or ESPN.
The 2018 season is the fifth under The American’s current television contract, which provides for more than 80 percent of conference-controlled games to be televised nationally on either ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews and CBS Sports Network, with the remainder on ESPN3 or regional television.
Kickoff times and television designations for the first three weeks of the season will be finalized in June, while the rest of the schedule will fall under the customary 12-day and six-day selection processes.