Army football joins the AAC

Army West Point (2-5, 0-0 Independent FBS) has been admitted to the American Athletic Conference (AAC) as a football-only member, according to an announcement made by AAC commissioner Mike Aresco and the conference's board of directors on Oct. 24.

Army, which has won five national championships and three Heisman Trophy winners, as well as numerous consensus All-America picks and College Football Hall of Fame honorees, will compete in the American starting in 2024. Other athletic programs for the Black Knight's will remain in their present conferences.

Army has been an independent football program since leaving Conference USA in 2004, yet they have remained competitive. Aresco says the Black Knights fit right into the American.

“We are honored to welcome Army to the American Athletic Conference,” Aresco said in a press conference. “Army’s football program has an iconic national brand with a legacy of success that spans more than a century and is a perfect fit with our conference. We look forward to having Army and coach Jeff Monken on our sidelines beginning in 2024.”

Regardless of Army's 2-5 record this season, Head Coach Jeff Monken has transformed the Black Knights program into a consistent winner. Monken has a 66-54 record as a head coach in 10 seasons. Between 2016 and 2021, the Black Knights ended with a winning record five times, including 10-3 in 2018 and 11-2 in 2018. During Monken's stint as head coach, Army has also gone 4-1 in bowl games.

Despite sharing a conference with the Navy Midshipmen (3-4, 2-2 AAC), the annual Army-Navy game will not be counted as a conference game and will be played on its regular date and Aresco said if Army and Navy meet in the AAC championship game, they would play on back-to-back weeks.

“We knew that we had to keep the Army and Navy game separate,” Aresco said. “That game is special, it’s been played for over 100 years. Unless they were in our championship game we wouldn't want them playing, both Army and Navy wanted to keep the game separate and we had no problem with that.”

Army will be the AAC's 14th football member. The league has lost the University of Cincinnati (2-5, 0-4 Big 12), the University of Houston (3-4, 1-3 Big 12), and the University of Central Florida (3-4, 0-4 Big 12) to the Big 12 and will lose Southern Methodist University (5-2, 3-0 AAC) to the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2024.

The AAC believes that 14 is the right team limit for the conference and Aresco said that while other schools have reached out to join the 10 year old conference, they are not looking to expand any further.

“For us, at this point, it’s definitely the close of any expansion discussions," Aresco said. "You never say never to anything, but at this point we have no interest in expanding beyond 14. We’re happy at 14. There have been schools that have expressed interest in us, but at this point we’re very happy with the membership we have.”