Week 1 Will Decide AAC Football’s Fate in 2019

By the time we hit Labor Day morning, we’ll know if UCF — or any other AAC team — will have a legitimate chance to play for the national title.

For the past two regular seasons, UCF won every game it played and did not come within shouting distance of the four-team college football playoff. Though UCF claimed a mythical national championship in 2017 when it beat the team that beat Bama, the 2018 team had no real shot. They lost their starting quarterback in the regular season finale and played valiantly while coming up short to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day.

That one loss seems to have erased the 25 straight wins that preceded it.

However, as we enter the start of the 2019 college football season, no league is poised to make as much noise on opening weekend as the American Athletic Conference. A lineup of big non-conference games could mean that the AAC will come out on Monday smelling like a rose, or even a Peach. On the flip side, a weekend of losses could doom UCF, and the league, before we hit Week 2.

In chronological order, let’s review the AAC’s big games, and the potential:

UCLA at Cincinnati, 7pm Thursday, ESPN

I am personally shocked by the lack of hype around this game. Have we really forgotten about Chip Kelly? He…