Navy football will be in West Division when it joins American Athletic Conference in 2015

The American Athletic Conference (AAC) announced Friday the two six-team divisions the conference will use when Navy joins for football in 2015.

Navy will play in the West Division, along with Houston, Memphis, Southern Methodist, Tulane and Tulsa. The East Division will feature Central Florida, Cincinnati, UConn, East Carolina, South Florida and Temple.

Each team will play eight conference games, facing the other five schools in its division as well as three from the other division.

"This is an exciting step in the continued development of our conference," AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said in a news release. "Our fans will enjoy our divisional play and the championship game that will be established in 2015."

While it makes little geographical sense for Navy to play schools from Texas and the south, many of their players come from there.

In 2012, Navy announced that it was joining what was then the Big East for football only starting in 2015. Navy's other teams compete in the Patriot League, but the football program has been independent.

"We feel really strongly that it's clear to us the future of college football is in a conference," Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said at the time. "There's strength in numbers, there's strength in the market, strength in branding, strength in resources a conference can bring to the table."