ORLANDO, Fla. _ With UConn set to leave the American Athletic Conference in June, the league is planning to file paperwork in the next few days seeking an NCAA waiver that would allow it to eliminate divisions in football.
Amid the changes, the league is working to make sure UCF and USF still meet every season for the annual War on I-4 rivalry showdown.
"We've alerted the NCAA, and our formal paperwork goes to them in the next day or two," AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco told the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday afternoon. "We hope to get an answer by October."
If approved, divisions would be eliminated for the 2020 season.
UConn's move to the Big East leaves the AAC with 11 football members. Rather than add a member, AAC school leaders decided it made more sense to apply for the waiver to eliminate football divisions.
"Our plan is to play with 11 teams, not to expand at this point," said Aresco, who added the AAC still is figuring out how its championship format would work without divisions. "Whether we're going to use rankings or whether we're just going to go with conference records with a tiebreaker ...
"Whatever we do, it would be the top two teams playing."
Aresco said AAC members unanimously decided to apply for the waiver. The Big 12 previously obtained the same waiver and competes without divisions while featuring just 10 schools.
If the AAC waiver is approved, Aresco said the conference will have to look at either establishing permanent opponents such as UCF and USF facing off each year or set up a different conference schedule format that still allows the Knights and Bulls to meet annually.
"They're our biggest rivalry game, and you could argue that we don't have as many true rivalry games as other conferences. We're developing them, but we don't have them yet," Aresco said of UCF and USF.
Houston and SMU, for instance, could be another geographic matchup that would be appealing.
"I have every hope that we'll get the waiver because it makes too much sense," Aresco said. "We don't want to be forced to add a team or raid another conference. We don't want to (be) encouraged to jettison a member. We just don't want to do that."
Aresco said eliminating the championship game is out of the question, because it is part of the league's media-rights deal with ESPN and another agreement with Learfield IMG College.
"As a conference, we have to play that championship game because it's too important for us," he said.
