Sources: Army approved to join AAC for football

Oct 25, 2023, 08:40 AM ET

The American Athletic Conference has actually voted to add Army into the league as a football-only member, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Wednesday, with the sides working toward the Black Knights taking part 2024.

Army will serve as a replacement for SMU, which is signing up with the ACC next year, to keep the AAC at 14 teams for football.The football-only

addition follows a similar arrangement to the one Navy has with the conference. Guaranteeing that the longstanding rivalry game between Army and Navy is played at completion of the college football season was an essential information to fix as part of Army’s addition.A source told ESPN’s Heather Dinich that the Black Knights

and Midshipmen will not deal with other in an AAC regular-season conference game and that the competition would continue as a nonconference match. In a situation in which Army and Navy surface in the top 2 in the conference standings, matching them up in the league’s title game, they would play each other in back-to-back weeks– first for the AAC title, and then in the rivalry game the following week, the source said.Army and Navy both play in the Patriot League in sports besides football.A conventional matchup with Flying force in early November will remain part of Army’s football schedule, the source said.Other schools had been discussed to sign up with the AAC, but none gained substantial traction and just Army had actually gotten outreach from the conference, sources informed Thamel last month.Army has actually played as an independent in football for the majority of its 134-year history, outside of belonging to Conference USA from 1998 to 2004.

The Black Knights are 2-5 this season ahead of a matchup with UMass on Saturday.