The inaugural American Athletic Conference football championship has been scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015 at noon ET, commissioner Mike Aresco announced Thursday. The game will be televised nationally on either ABC or ESPN.
Aresco also announced the protocols for determining the participants and the site of the game. Those protocolas were approved by the AAC athletic directors at the league’s annual business meeting in Key Biscayne, Fla.
With Navy joining the AAC, the 2015 season will be The American’s first in its new 12-team, two-division format, in which each team will play eight conference games. Each team will face the other five teams in its own division as well as three teams from the other division. The American’s East Division includes UConn, UCF, Cincinnati, East Carolina, USF and Temple. The West Division lineup is Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, Tulane and Tulsa. The two divisional champions will meet in The American Championship at the home site of one of the participants.
The winner of the American Athletic Conference Football Championship will have the opportunity to participate in one of the College Football Playoff New Year’s Bowls if it is the highest-ranked team among the champions of Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference and the Sun Belt Conference.
“We are pleased to finalize the details of the first American Athletic Conference Football Championship, which will feature two outstanding and deserving teams,” said Aresco. “We considered a number of different tiebreaker models to determine which teams would play for the conference championship, but in the end, we feel that performance on the field was the best way to proceed.”
Divisional Champions
The divisional champions will be the teams from each division with the highest winning percentage in all conference games – both divisional and non-divisional. In the event of a two-team tie within a division, the head-to-head result between the tied teams will determine the divisional champion.
Championship Site
The site of the American Athletic Conference Football Championship will be the home venue of the divisional champion with the best record in conference games. If the two divisional champions have the same conference record, then the regular-season head-to-head winner between the divisional champions would host the championship. If the divisional champions have the same conference record and did not play in the regular season, then the team with the better overall regular-season record would host the championship.
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