AAC Recap - Week 4

Cincinnati didn’t play in week 4, but the AAC had some wild and crazy finishes and some pretty surprising results.

AAC East

Obviously the biggest story in the AAC in week 4, and one of the biggest in all of college football, was UCF losing to Pitt. Knights lost a tough road game 35-34, losing their first regular season game since 11/26/2016, snapping a 27 game win streak.

UCF trailed 21-0 in the first half and cut the deficit to 21-10 at halftime. Knights would score 3 touchdowns in the span of 9 minutes in the third quarter to take a 31-21 lead and it seemed like momentum had shifted. Overcoming and blowing that type of lead is the story of the UCF and Pitt programs, respectively.

But Pitt, led by former Cincinnati Defensive Coordinator Pat Narduzzi showed a lot of guts, came back and won the game with this fancy trick play.

More on how the UCF loss impacts Cincinnati

Temple is always a tough out. They’ve beaten Cincinnati the last four meetings. Last week the Owls were impressive beating 21st ranked Maryland. Terps were held to 17 points after scoring 79 and 63, respectively, in their first two games. So how did Temple follow up that win? By losing to Buffalo. They led 7-0 after the first quarter but Buffalo went on a 24-0 run in the second quarter and that was that.

Temple QB Anthony Russo threw 3 TDs and 3 INTs and the normally stout run game was completely stifled, as the Owls ran for 31 yards on 23 rushes as a team.

East Carolina beat William & Mary. It was ugly. It was sluggish. Pirates won 19-7 to improve to 2-2. They play Old Dominion next week and than enter AAC play. Hard to see them winning another game in 2019.

Until July 1, 2020 UConn is still a thing that exists, so we will keep covering them, for now. Indiana was a 27 point favorite. Never in the history of the world could anyone fathom Indiana at -27 in college football, regardless of the opponent. And they covered. With ease. Hoosiers won 38-3. UConn now has the joyous pleasure of playing an angry UCF team in Orlando next week. Sounds fun.

AAC West

This divisional race is going to be wild and fun to monitor through conference play.

First, on Thursday night, Tulane got a huge win over Houston. It was the biggest win for the Green Wave since entering the AAC, considering it was on National TV, at home, and against a team who was among the favorites in the division.

Tulane won due to two huge plays in the final minute...

And they followed up the fake knee with a touchdown that makes you wonder if Houston could have played better defense on...

SMU beat 25th ranked TCU and is 4-0. They won the Iron Skillet for the first time since 2011 (7 prior losses). RB Xavier Jones (ugh, I hate that first name) ran for his 8th TD of the year and also caught one of Shane Buechele’s 2 TD passes. Buechele, the transfer from Texas, continues to get better every week

Tulsa finished the non-conference portion of their schedule at 2-2. All of their games were challenging with the losses coming to Oklahoma State and Michigan State and the wins against San Jose State (who beat Arkansas on Saturday) and Wyoming (who beat Missouri week 1). Tulsa is fueled by their running game, but on Saturday it was QB Zach Smith who did all the dirty work, completing 25 of 50 passes for 354 yards and 2 TDs.