Played 2015–present Official website Official site | Conference The American | |
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The American Athletic Conference Football Championship Game is a college football game currently held by the American Athletic Conference (The American) each year to determine the conference's season champion. The inaugural game was held on December 5, 2015, at 12:00 pm ET.
Contents
The game will pit the champion of Eastern division (Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, South Florida, Temple, and UCF) against the champion of the Western division (Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, Tulane, and Tulsa). The game will be played at the home stadium of the division winner with the better conference record.
Television broadcast rights to the game are owned by ESPN/ABC.
History
The American was reorganized following the tumultuous period of realignment that hobbled the Big East between 2010 and 2013. In all, 14 member schools announced their departure for other conferences, and 15 other schools announced plans to join the conference (eight as all-sports members, and four for football only). In December 2012, the Big East's seven remaining non-FBS schools, all Catholic institutions — DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Villanova – announced that they voted unanimously to leave the conference.
After a settlement in 2013 between the non-FBS schools and the FBS schools regarding the use of the conference name, the ten remaining football playing members renamed themselves the American Athletic Conference. In 2014, Louisville and Rutgers departed the conference and joined the ACC and Big Ten, respectively. Their departure was succeeded on the same day by the entrance of East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa for all sports. In 2015, the U.S. Naval Academy joined the conference for football, bringing the membership total to twelve teams. At the time, the conference split into two six-team divisions and created a conference championship game.
Results
Rankings are from the College Football Playoff poll
Team selection criteria
Division standings are based on each team's overall conference record. In the event that two teams are tied, head-to head competition would break the tie. If the two teams did not play, division record will be used to determine the divisional champion. If three or more teams are tied, the following tiebreakers are used to determine the divisional champion:
- Head-to-head (best record in games among the tied teams).
- Record in games played within the division.
- Record against the next highest placed team in the division (based on record in all Conference games, both divisional and non-divisional).
- Record against the next highest placed team in the division (based on record in divisional games).
- Record against common non-divisional opponents.
- Best overall winning percentage in all games.
- Highest CFP ranking following the last weekend of regular-season games.
- Coin toss.
Site selection criteria
The site of the Championship Game is the home stadium of the division champion with the best overall conference record. In the event that the two division champions are tied, then the head-to-head record shall be used as the tiebreaker. If the two teams did not play, the following procedure is used to determine the host: