Five years ago, the state of the Sun Belt Conference looked very uncertain. You had some of the big dogs of the conference leave for what seemed to be greener pastures. Teams like Florida International, North Texas, Middle Tennessee, even Western Kentucky all packed their bags in 2013 to head over to Conference-USA.
Fast forward to 2017, the Sun Belt looks better than ever with Appalachian State, Arkansas State, and Troy leading the way in college football. The Louisiana Ragin Cajuns and South Alabama are also looking really good headed into the season and that makes an extremely competitive conference in the biggest moneymaker in college sports.
“Our football programs have emerged over the past five years and we are no longer the younger brother of the other nine CFP conferences.” Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Karl Benson said during his opening statement at Sun Belt media day on Monday. “We are ready to stand toe-to-toe, shoulder-to-shoulder, and are now prepared to compete head-to-head against our peer conferences as we get into the next era of the Sun Belt Conference.”
Looking Back
When you look back to the 2012 season, it was the first sign that the Sun Belt was moving in a different direction in terms of who were the “big dogs” of the conference. The Cajuns and Arkansas State stood head and shoulders above the rest when they finished the season with nine and ten wins respectively. Meanwhile, you had most of the departing teams fall below .500 with the exceptions of Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky.
The two Florida teams (International and Atlantic) in the Sun Belt both finished at 3-9 while North Texas finished 4-8. These five teams leaving left a major void in several sports and left a lot of people in the world of college sports questioning how much longer the conference would last.
Only two years later, a massive change came. Georgia Southern and Appalachian State came into the conference in a big way, finishing in first and second. That laid the groundwork for the current era of Sun Belt football that saw these two teams transition smoothly from FCS to FBS.
Looking Into the Future
The future of the Sun Belt is, as Commissioner Benson put it five years ago, so bright you have to wear shades. However, it looks like there are no current plans to expand past ten teams after Idaho and New Mexico State leave the conference after three seasons.
“We are not actively looking nor have any signals out there that we would entertain any new members.” Benson said of possibly expanding, “We got to ten in a very methodical and thoughtful way. At one time, we thought we needed to be a 12 team league because of NCAA rules but once that was eliminated that changed our entire philosophy and strategy. Therefore, that has resulted in the decision to go to ten. We also believe that ten is the right number in terms of creating the structure and non‐conference scheduling to get to six wins. And a ten team league has shown that conferences with fewer teams appear to be better treated by the computers.”
While there may not be any expansions in terms of getting more teams into the conference in general, there’s a possibility of the Sun Belt growing from within as Little Rock is in the midst of a feasibility study to determine whether or not they want to get back into college football.
The Trojans already participate in most of the major sports and if the report shows that it is indeed feasible to have a football team, they would then be incorporated within the conference, making it an 11-team conference.
While the conference may not be ready to expand, the state of the union when it comes to the Sun Belt; it is certainly way better off than it was in 2012.
-Clint Domingue