In the current conditions, the Sun Belt is in the best shape its ever been in.
The first decade no champion used success as a springboard for investment. UNT pissed around in a dump and didn't do a thing to deal with it until football fell on it's butt. Troy came in with good facilities for the day but failed to seek out happy donors when they were winning.

Now you have the three time champ plowing millions into facilities and paying competitive salaries, you have last year's co-champ and three year success story doing likewise. You've got newcomers Texas State, App St, and Georgia Southern investing. ULM has finally awakened to the need for better facilities. USA has longer term plans on facilities but made a great hire, they have one of his former DC's as head coach at UAB and another hired away. Jones has clearly got an eye for coaching talent.

The current CFP distribution penalizes growing larger than 12 and in the grand scheme of things there isn't a CFP league making much off TV. Frankly if you want really good TV money outside the P5 the best option is drop football, turn your school over to the Jesuits and get great in basketball.

The Sun Belt could have been killed in 2004 but the WAC wouldn't pull the trigger to go to 12 by taking UNT, UL, AState, and MTSU (leaving Idaho in the cold).

It could have been killed at the same time the WAC was killed but no one wanted to pull the trigger then.

Blah blah blah, markets but the reality is the Sun Belt from an administrative standpoint the Sun Belt of 2014 is better supported enterprise than it was 5-6 years ago.

Unless the TV model or CFP model changes the Sun Belt is secure

The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

(09-06-2014 08:57 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(09-06-2014 12:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-05-2014 11:58 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(09-05-2014 07:48 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  Between 1 and 2. Nothing lasts forever, and the Sun Belt Conference is less permanent than a lot of groupings. But certainly the length of the College Football Playoff contract.

South Alabama has been in the Sun Belt since 1975.

The Big East was founded in 1979.

We'll be fine.

When the Sun Belt was at its peak in basketball it had Western Kentucky (recently to CUSA), UAB (long since to CUSA), UNCC (to CUSA to A10 and back to CUSA) and Old Dominion (to Colonial and now CUSA) along with Virginia Commonwealth(Colonial to A10), South Florida (CUSA to BE to AAC) and Jacksonville (Atlantic Sun). Georgia State was also a member and has since returned.

Its a good name. No telling who will be in it, but it will still be around in some form.

Absorb the ASun?

No offense Kitty but this infernal posting of the picture of the Ohio football stadium needs to take a break. I am sure that the good people at Ohio U. are proud as can be of their stadium but frankly it is nothing for the rest of the football world to go crazy over. I think if I were a fan of this school I would keep the stadium pics to myself.

(09-07-2014 11:01 AM)Savacool Wrote:  The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

ULL has 1 win in its last 4 outings and has been thrashed by ULM, USA, and now LTU. I think this is a ULL issue, not a Sun Belt issue.

We're having a disappointing start to the season, but it'll be okay. Nor are we afraid of competing with CUSA.

(09-07-2014 11:01 AM)Savacool Wrote:  The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

In the words of the immortal Rick Flair "To be the man you got to beat man" and for now CUSA is the man. But watch out because what goes around comes around.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

NMSU is 2-0...........

It will last forever...........or not....

But, definately one of the two

(09-07-2014 11:01 AM)Savacool Wrote:  The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

ULL is way overhyped. To me that are 5th best in the belt..I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make a bowl..ole miss and boise will handle them easily..I see them losing 3 conference games minimum

(09-07-2014 12:59 PM)Wobblefrog Wrote:  

(09-06-2014 08:57 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(09-06-2014 12:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-05-2014 11:58 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(09-05-2014 07:48 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  Between 1 and 2. Nothing lasts forever, and the Sun Belt Conference is less permanent than a lot of groupings. But certainly the length of the College Football Playoff contract.

South Alabama has been in the Sun Belt since 1975.

The Big East was founded in 1979.

We'll be fine.

When the Sun Belt was at its peak in basketball it had Western Kentucky (recently to CUSA), UAB (long since to CUSA), UNCC (to CUSA to A10 and back to CUSA) and Old Dominion (to Colonial and now CUSA) along with Virginia Commonwealth(Colonial to A10), South Florida (CUSA to BE to AAC) and Jacksonville (Atlantic Sun). Georgia State was also a member and has since returned.

Its a good name. No telling who will be in it, but it will still be around in some form.

Absorb the ASun?

No offense Kitty but this infernal posting of the picture of the Ohio football stadium needs to take a break. I am sure that the good people at Ohio U. are proud as can be of their stadium but frankly it is nothing for the rest of the football world to go crazy over. I think if I were a fan of this school I would keep the stadium pics to myself.

Its an up to date picture of the stadium from about the first of the year. Its the only overhead stadium shot since the new turf was put in in.

A lot of Peden pictures that fans are posting are 10-15 years out of date, lacking the new turf and recent work. Another expansion is due pretty soon in the North End Zone to fill in the gap between the seats.

^
LOL, it's called a signature.

(09-05-2014 09:47 PM)panama Wrote:  Georgia schools in the MAC?!?

So impossible, yet the MAC has had teams in Florida (UCF), Philadelphia (Temple), Massachusetts (UMass) and former affiliate members in Florida again (FAU). Georgia is also only two states away from MAc territory, so it's not implausible, especially with teams previously in Florida and basically New Jersey (Temple).

(09-07-2014 11:01 AM)Savacool Wrote:  The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

If we are talking about national perception, the G5 conferences are measured by P5 upsets. As it stands now, CUSA has not beaten a p5 team this year, so there is really little separation from the SBC. Both are viewed as bad.

(09-07-2014 11:01 AM)Savacool Wrote:  The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

I find it amusing that my Cajun friends with two shared league football titles since the league started in 2001 and a good run of 27-12 in 2011-13 are declared to be the standard-bearer of all Sun Belt greatness.

Meanwhile yet to be picked to win the league AState with two outright and two shared titles, a 28-11 run over those seasons is "also in the Sun Belt".

Even more interesting is it is all about markets (never mind that the town where most folks around AState is in the Memphis market and many people who can actually see a Jonesboro TV tower from their driveway are in the Little Rock market) is TV ratings.

2012 Tuesday night Sun Belt
Cajuns vs. UNT 366,000 viewers
Cajuns vs. AState 778,000 viewers

2013 Tuesday night Sun Belt
Cajuns vs Western Ky 456,000 viewers
Cajuns vs. AState 767,000 viewers

Guess the media likes the mascot, or the tailgating, or likes not having to keep track of who the heck the coach is but I find it strange that the Cajuns get so much of "top of the league" love from outsiders.

Personally I won't be shocked if the rally and win the league and AState is highly suspect this year because of depth (played 13 true freshmen this year, basically one injury away from having to move people to offensive line) but the lack of acknowledgement of AState is puzzling.

(09-07-2014 11:01 AM)Savacool Wrote:  The announcers on ESPN 3 said the best in the Sunbelt the University of Louisiana at Lafayette UL-L was beaten soundly,embarrassed and routed by the worst in CUSA, Louisiana Tech. The Sunbelt website has new threads every day telling you that they are better and bashing CUSA. I do not think so. Will severely hurt the Sunbelts reputation and recruiting in my opinion.

Nationally these games go mostly unnoticed so there is no change in the national reputation as a result. Beating Florida in the Swamp are the types of wins that impact your national reputation.

(09-05-2014 07:52 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  Posters on the SBC board will tell you that the SBC was the strongest G5 conference last year and currently has more value than the AAC, MWC, CUSA, MAC.

From my vantage point, one major realignment by the P5 or even within the G5 and the SBC is toast. I'm not sure if the conference will be around in 10 years.

From certain vantage points, the next big P5 major realignment is just around the corner ... but more realistically, something that depends upon a major realignment implies a decade or more.

(09-07-2014 08:32 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I find it amusing that my Cajun friends with two shared league football titles since the league started in 2001 and a good run of 27-12 in 2011-13 are declared to be the standard-bearer of all Sun Belt greatness.

Meanwhile yet to be picked to win the league AState with two outright and two shared titles, a 28-11 run over those seasons is "also in the Sun Belt".

Neutral Yankee question:

How's A-State's attendance? Because ULaLa has (as far as I know) for a long time had strong lower-FBS attendance (consitent 25K+) and recently has done a lot better than that. Could that be part of why outsiders notice ULL and not stAte?

(09-07-2014 10:19 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(09-07-2014 08:32 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I find it amusing that my Cajun friends with two shared league football titles since the league started in 2001 and a good run of 27-12 in 2011-13 are declared to be the standard-bearer of all Sun Belt greatness.

Meanwhile yet to be picked to win the league AState with two outright and two shared titles, a 28-11 run over those seasons is "also in the Sun Belt".

Neutral Yankee question:

How's A-State's attendance? Because ULaLa has (as far as I know) for a long time had strong lower-FBS attendance (consitent 25K+) and recently has done a lot better than that. Could that be part of why outsiders notice ULL and not stAte?

We're averaging right around 25K generally now.

Cajuns have been helped tremendously by having a Bowl game in their back yard that allows them a chance to bring the entire fan base to a centralized location. Arkansas State loves Mobile, but its a 7 hour drive, and You'll never convince the numbers that the Cajuns get at the NO Bowl to drive 7 hours down the road. The Saturday playing date is better and has allowed them to take advantage of what they have been given.

Credit to the Cajuns for knowing how to take advantage of that though.

Just to throw my two cents in on Kitton's next speculation.

The SBC has nearly split several times. There is no doubt about that. We could have been killed in 04 by the WAC, but they balked at trying to pick up ULL, UNT, ASU, and MTSU and forming an Eastern Division Bankowsky liked to dream about killing the SBC a few years ago as the WAC was dying, but he could never get the support needed amongst his presidents to go to 16.

At this point though, the league is probably the most stable its ever been. By ignoring market, we may hurt our TV numbers in the future. But you cant get much worse than what we got. What we did instead though was create a league that teams wanted to be a part of. We had to reconstruct our entire East Division basically, and managed to create a bunch of intriguing rivalries in the process.

The only way the SBC is killed off is if there is a split amongst the Eastern and Western members over petty squabbles. Something that was more likely to happen when MTSU and WKU were around than it is with App State and GS.

(09-07-2014 11:02 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Just to throw my two cents in on Kitton's next speculation.

The SBC has nearly split several times. There is no doubt about that. We could have been killed in 04 by the WAC, but they balked at trying to pick up ULL, UNT, ASU, and MTSU and forming an Eastern Division Bankowsky liked to dream about killing the SBC a few years ago as the WAC was dying, but he could never get the support needed amongst his presidents to go to 16.

At this point though, the league is probably the most stable its ever been. By ignoring market, we may hurt our TV numbers in the future. But you cant get much worse than what we got. What we did instead though was create a league that teams wanted to be a part of. We had to reconstruct our entire East Division basically, and managed to create a bunch of intriguing rivalries in the process.

The only way the SBC is killed off is if there is a split amongst the Eastern and Western members over petty squabbles. Something that was more likely to happen when MTSU and WKU were around than it is with App State and GS.

the SBC is practically the continuation of BW football - I hope it lasts a long time.

Long enough to see realignment at the G5 level in which we wake up and compile more logical, geographical based conferences.

(09-05-2014 07:52 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  From my vantage point, one major realignment by the P5 or even within the G5 and the SBC is toast. I'm not sure if the conference will be around in 10 years.

And who makes the domino move?

The Big XII is the only one really with any room to move in the P5, althogh you could argue that the PAC makes more overtures toward Texas/OU as the one other possibility, and about the only other possibility I would think of right now would be Houston or SMU school to the BigXII (and we all know the chances *snowball + hell* of that happening.)

The AAC? They're pretty much full up I believe.

C-USA? They're at their 14 number. (If they had space, I could see them plucking one, but that would be their limit).

MAC? No one that would move could really make a dent (IMO) in the SB that wants to move into that "bus league" (not a slam, just a note on the MAC's geography).

Right now, unless there's a TOTAL shakeup, I'd say the SB is going to be stable right where they're at.

(09-08-2014 01:40 PM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(09-05-2014 07:52 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  From my vantage point, one major realignment by the P5 or even within the G5 and the SBC is toast. I'm not sure if the conference will be around in 10 years.

And who makes the domino move?

The Big XII is the only one really with any room to move in the P5, althogh you could argue that the PAC makes more overtures toward Texas/OU as the one other possibility, and about the only other possibility I would think of right now would be Houston or SMU school to the BigXII (and we all know the chances *snowball + hell* of that happening.)

The AAC? They're pretty much full up I believe.

C-USA? They're at their 14 number. (If they had space, I could see them plucking one, but that would be their limit).

MAC? No one that would move could really make a dent (IMO) in the SB that wants to move into that "bus league" (not a slam, just a note on the MAC's geography).

Right now, unless there's a TOTAL shakeup, I'd say the SB is going to be stable right where they're at.

Pretty much. It would take major realignment to really get things moving.