One thing no one ever considers much this early is the effect of injuries and coaching. Some to the new coaches could turn out to be really good or really bad. And I've seen injuries take a championship talented team to 6-6 real danged quick.

stAte has the most complete team on paper and they deserve to be on top for pre-season ranking. there biggest problem is there OCC history. without them winning those games, it takes away a lot of there luster. and makes me think they can be beaten in conference also.

next is Troy and App state, both have the coaching and teams to win every game, but both have question marks that makes me hesitant to put them at the top.

next is this years G5 of the Sun Belt. To me these 5 teams all start the season as equals, each has lots of questions and lots of potential. Louisiana, Georgia Southern, South Alabama, Georgia State, and ULM.

lastly is Texas State and Coastal Carolina. they may shock some people this year, but should not get any pre-season love until they prove something first.

(07-19-2018 09:55 PM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(07-19-2018 09:31 PM)sdcritter Wrote:  

(07-19-2018 09:28 PM)Atlanta Trojan Wrote:  

(07-19-2018 09:21 PM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote:  

(07-19-2018 09:14 PM)JoeJag Wrote:  I Strongly believe the winner of the East (Troy or App. State) will win the SBCCG.

This is America . . . you can be a dumb-ass if you choose . . .

Says the guy who thought there was no way they would lose 2 SBC games last year

This is why we play the games. Sheesh. We have some equally matched teams in the SunBelt. We'll know sometime in December. Feel free to trash talk until then. But Appy will not be in the mix. Pretty confident about that.

I agree with the equally matched teams part. My thoughts are we kinda have three tiers but those tiers are not as separated as some think. In the upper tier you have stAte, App, Troy but not without question marks going into the season. In the middle tier you have ULM, GSU, USA & ULL and out of those ULM has the least ???. Finally you have GS, Coastal and Texas St with all of these lower tier teams hungry for some success don't be surprised if one or more of these three jump up a tier or two because as we all know the talent level (with the exception of stAte) is so close in this conference a simple change in coaching or a few players can make or break a season.

ULM should be ok but we do have 11 question marks. The entire defense

Just win ALL the out of conference G5 games and a handful of the P5 games. Go! Fight! Win APPS!

Our general history indicates one of the following things will happen:

1. We go 1-3 in OOC play. Fans start putting For Sale signs in Anderson's front yard. We then win all 8 of our league games, including a 3 TD Win over App, and everyone becomes convinced we're amazing and just started slow

2. We go 1-3 in OOC Play. Fans start putting For Sale signs in Anderson's front yard. We rebound slightly in league, but lose to App and at least one other league team in a game that makes us bang our heads into a wall, to finish 7-5. We make another bowl...but there becomes serious concern within the fan base that we are spiraling toward mediocrity.

Perhaps we sneak out wins over weaker than usual OOC Competition (The Non Bama editions) and prove ourselves...but I'll believe it when I see it.