The American Athletic Conference will be willing to negotiate a higher exit rate to accommodate previous UCF, Cincinnati and Houston outings at the Big 12 Conference, AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco told ESPN on Friday.
AAC statutes require schools to give 27 months ’notice before leaving and pay a $ 10 million purchase fee. If these three schools comply with the statutes, Aresco said, the departure date would be July 1, 2024. Although talks have not yet taken place, Aresco said it expects it to enter into negotiations to adjust the rate. output.
“We usually do it, because it’s not a fantastic situation when you know someone is leaving,” he said. “You can often do that, you can mitigate it a little bit more, you get a higher exit rate and they leave earlier, so we’re sure we’ll be willing to negotiate as we’ve done before and as they’ve done. other conferences in the past, but I still can’t say exactly at this time, no one has indicated which year. “
UCF sporting director Terry Mohajir said his school is “open to any choice”.
“Let’s see where we are with our contract with the American,” Mohajir said, “and all options are open right now.”
Meanwhile, Aresco said his conference plans to move “deliberately and quickly” to add two to four teams to bolster the league to 10 or 12 teams after all three outings. Aresco declined to name specific schools that the AAC is interested in, but said they would only “entertain institutions that have shown interest in us.”
“We don’t try to sneak in, we don’t try to persuade,” he said. “There have been schools that have shown interest in us. I try not to create any instability in the system … We just try to regroup. We know we have to get bigger. This is just a fact of life based on the that has happened, but I try not to disturb things. “
Aresco said the AAC would likely look for members in all sports, not just in football, but it’s also a possibility.
“Ultimately, we want to be stronger than we were,” he said. “We believe there are schools interested in us that would help us do that.
“We would just like to find schools that think alike, that have this DNA of achievement, that have a cultural fit, both academic and social, cultural,” he added. “Geography does matter to some extent, but it matters less and less because travel is so much better than it was before.”
Aresco has long advocated the elevation of the AAC to the same autonomous status that Power 5 conferences enjoy, and has pushed its conference to make it the “Power 6”. He reiterated on Friday that he will continue this effort with new members while working to change a system that makes it difficult to enter and exit this autonomous status at conferences.
“I think we’ll have a stronger case because the Big 12 has almost half of its members come from ranks that don’t belong in power, if TCU and BYU are included,” he said. “The predominant feeling is that we were a P6 and the system couldn’t accommodate it or couldn’t.”
“The decision has to come back from the legislative process within the NCAA,” said Houston President Renu Khator, who holds a seat on the NCAA Board of Governors, the highest governing body in the NCAA. Aresco said he expects UCF, Cincinnati and Houston to succeed in the Big 12, and that several people from those schools arrived, including an “absolutely lovely” message from Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell.
“You can’t take this personally,” Aresco said. “It’s not fun to go through and no one will argue that you don’t put on a happy face, but on the other hand, it’s necessary. There’s a human aspect. And they’re all people who really did a good job at the conference and they were loyal members and obviously consider it in their best interest to do what they do, and we need to respect that and move on. “
ESPN’s Andrea Adelson contributed to this report