The American Athletic Conference had a great regular season but then a terrible bowl season. The league then endured a number of changes to its coaching staffs. Those movements form the main story lines for the offseason. A lot of internal adjustments need to come from AAC programs in the spring and summer if they are to succeed in the fall.
South Florida Bulls
The South Florida Bulls watched their highly successful head coach, Willie Taggart, move to Oregon to coach the Ducks. Taggart took at USF program from a 2-10 record to a 10-2 record. He then left for the bowl game before the interim staff won the Birmingham Bowl against South Carolina to finish 11-2. In his place is Charlie Strong, fired at the University of Texas but able to find a very good job on the rebound. Strong was defensive coordinator for several years at Florida. He knows the recruiting pipelines in the state and should be able to bring in high-quality players on a consistent basis. In 2017, he’ll have veteran quarterback Quinton Flowers as the leader of his offense. It will help that Strong is bringing in Sterlin Gilbert, his offensive coordinator from Texas, as the play-caller for the South Florida offense. Strong and Gilbert have had a year together, and should be able to make a smoother transition to USF, where a talented upperclassman quarterback awaits. Nevertheless, the new coaches have to mesh with the new players.
Houston Cougars
The coaching change which occurred in Houston was not an outside hire, but an inside promotion. When Tom Herman left for Texas, offensive coordinator Major Applewhite rose within the ranks to become Houston’s new head coach. Remember, there was a (very) brief period of time where some people thought that Lane Kiffin might be a head coaching option for this school. They made the right decision by scrapping that plan.
Applewhite knows the local high school recruiting scene in Houston and other Texas hotbeds. He must keep pace with what Herman did on the recruiting trail, because he is not as good at the Xs and Os of coaching as Herman is. Houston also lost Herman’s defensive coordinator, Todd Orlando, to Texas. Houston hired Mark D’Onofrio as its new defensive coordinator, which appears to be a downgrade from Orlando. Everyone will wait to see if the new Houston coaches can sustain the program and keep them competitive in the AAC.
Temple Owls
When the Owls lost head coach Matt Rhule and defensive coordinator Phil Snow, they lost two excellent coaches. The defending AAC champions hired Geoff Collins, who was on Jim McElwain’s staff at Florida. One thing Temple did was to hire a special video coordinator in charge of recruiting and promotions. The program is clearly trying to pursue alternative ways of staying relevant. That’s noteworthy, but the first matter of business is for Collins to prove he is as adept at developing players as Rhule was. The Owls need to keep pace with South Florida in the offseason.
Memphis Tigers
The Tigers lost offensive coordinator Chip Long to Notre Dame, but Darrell Dickey stepped in as a veteran presence and should provide stability. The bigger offseason story for the Tigers is that they pulled in a surprisingly great recruiting class, ranked higher than any other team outside the Power 5 conferences. This brings pressure for the season, but it also suggests that coach Mike Norvell could be a much better hire than anyone thought when he came aboard a year ago. Now Norvell has to prove he can coach this level of talent to a premium bowl game.
A lot of people are keeping a close eye on Memphis to see where this team is heading. The feeling is that Justin Fuente was the coach who built this program up and that they will falter without him (now that he’s coaching at Virginia Tech). Now the Tigers lost another key coach. We’ll see if Norvell can keep this together as there is opportunity for this team to move in the AAC.
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