Tulane won the Cotton Bowl after the 2022 season and reached the Rose Bowl the following January — two New Year's Six bowls in consecutive years as an AAC program. They enter 2026 as the conference's highest-rated team and the one program that has consistently proven the AAC can play at the New Year's Six level even without its most famous former members.

Memphis has the recruiting footprint — a major city, a strong basketball brand that carries football, and a pipeline to skill players from the mid-South — to win the AAC every year. They went 10-2 in 2025. The program that can't quite make the leap into CFP territory but is consistently dangerous in December is still valuable. In the AAC's new format, Memphis might be the most important program for the conference's long-term stability.

The three service academy programs now play each other every year in a conference context — the only such arrangement in FBS history. Navy's option offense, Army's commitment to the wishbone, Air Force's triple-option system: three teams with distinct identities and shared cultures playing meaningful games against each other before they play Army-Navy in December. The format is unlike anything else in college football. Fans who have never watched the AAC have a reason to start.