The cleaning up of the AAC standings continues this weekend as the number of teams tied for first in the standings, currently at three with Central Florida, Houston and South Florida all 2-0, should be shrunk to two or even one. And standing in line awaiting slipups from any of the top three are one-loss teams like Louisville and Rutgers who still aim to rise to the top of the standings.
UCF is, of course, in the driver's seat having beaten Louisville on the road. They have six conference games remaining, four at home and they will be favored in the road games against Temple and SMU who are a combined 3-10. The Knights should have no problem upping their conference mark to 3-0 Saturday versus winless UConn.
Houston's path is tougher, both Saturday at Rutgers and for the rest of the season. Saturday is a must win as the Cougars still must play at Louisville and at UCF. Realistically they are playing for a decent bowl bid but as long as there is a zero in the conference loss category they have a shot for the whole prize. This will be the toughest road test for Houston, to date, and its true freshman QB
John O'Korn. But O'Korn has a veteran's swagger, honed by playing big-time high school football at Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale. And Rutgers has been having secondary issues all season--what was never a strength has gotten worse through attrition--and that will be a problem against Houston's passing attack. The Houston defense, however, is fresh off allowing 681y to BYU so the Scarlet Knights will be moving the ball too. Expect a high scoring affair (61.5 over/under) that is decided in the 4th quarter.
As for South Florida, well its 2-0 conference mark is belied by an 0-4 out of conference record. Can they continue to win AAC games? Hosting a mad Louisville team is probably not the best way to continue the season reversal. For Louisville, the squad has to remain focused on games at hand and forget about rankings, BCS bids and Heismans. They are off the radar and must take care of business against desperate teams like the Bulls. For Saturday they must keep the pass rush off of Teddy Bridgewater and not let the home team hang around. If not they will repeat last year's mistake of following their first loss, late at Syracuse, by being stunned at home to UConn for loss number two.
Things should be a bit clearer in the AAC come Sunday, although if anyone can catch UCF until they host Houston on November 9.
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