THE AMERICAN CONFERENCE: KNOW YOUR MEMBERS

You will need help. Oh, I don't want to pay attention to the Big Lots Big East. No one initially does, but one Friday night it will be the only thing on, and you will pay attention out of desperation, and be very confused unless you prepare.

That won't happen. We've known each other a long time, Italicized Reader We Just Made Up. You are like everyone else, and will watch American Conference football, because you watched CFL this past weekend. If you'll watch that, you will watch anything including the American Conference and last night's BET Awards where Charlie Wilson made Tulsa's conference membership totally justified all by himself.

The actual current members without, yanno, hangups about going to other conferences: Cincy, Houston, UConn, Memphis, SMU, USF, Temple, and UCF. Louisville and Rutgers are hanging around this year until their leases run out, and they move to the ACC and Big Ten, respectively. Tulane, East Carolina, and Tulsa join in 2014. Navy comes along in 2015, presumably because they got lonely.

A handy verse for remembering the eventual full membership follows:

SMU for bank

(UConn? They tagged along)

Houston for the purple drank

Cincy: for binturongs

Tulane for cocktails

Memphis for ribs

USF for jumped bails

UCF for shivs

ECU for buccaneers

Navy for the sailors

Tulsa for the cows and steers

Temple? For the failure.