2025 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: AAC

Last week we looked at how AAC teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2025 AAC standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, AAC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

I use a game and a half as a somewhat arbitrary criteria to determine if a team's record differed significantly from their expected APR. By that standard, Navy and Tulane were the only team's that saw their record differ significantly from their APR with both teams overachieving. Navy also overachieved relative to their YPP numbers and we went over some reasons for that last week. For Tulane, the reason for their overachievement was simple, they won the close ones. The Green Wave finished 3-0 in one-score conference games on their way to an AAC title and CFP bid. 

With So Much Drama in the AAC, its Kinda Hard Going Winless in the CLT

Apologies to Snoop for the cringe worthy parody of his iconic opener, but the 49ers achieved an ignominious feat in 2025 by becoming just the eleventh non-power conference team in the BCS/CFP era (since 1998) to finish winless in conference play with each loss coming by double digits. The eleven teams are listed below chronologically along with their conference affiliation, per game scoring differential in conference play, and closest conference loss. 

The 49ers were bad in 2025, but not exceptionally so when compared to these other basement dwellers. Their per game scoring margin is middle of the pack amongst these eleven teams and they stayed within two touchdowns in one game. Credit to Ball State for somehow losing their conference games by an average of more than five touchdowns per game in 2017. Its no secret Charlotte was bad in 2025. How much improvement can we reasonably expect in 2026? This is how the previous ten teams fared in their follow up seasons. 

Nine of the ten teams improved the following season, with only Wyoming putting up another goose egg in the conference win column. Most of the teams were still bad, with only UCF and Southern Miss getting to a .500 conference record. Both those schools also changed coaches after their winless conference campaigns. Charlotte did not, as head coach Tim Albin was in his first season as head coach. Two other teams on this list were led by first year head coaches. Vic Koenning (Wyoming) and Marcus Arroyo (UNLV) had rough initial first seasons at their respective schools. Unfortunately, things did not get much better from there. Koenning lasted three seasons at Wyoming, winning just one Mountain West game during his tenure (1-20 conference record). Arroyo fared a little better in Sin City, improving his overall win total each season (0 to 2 to 5), but was canned after three seasons giving way to the most successful run in UNLV's history. A sample size of two coaches in hardly a death sentence for Albin's Charlotte tenure. He has been successful at his two previous head coaching stops (Northwestern Oklahoma State and Ohio) after rough first seasons, but if the 49ers continue to struggle in Albin's second season, it might be time to ponder if the 49ers are committed to winning at the FBS level.