I Am A Pathological Liar

I know that I said that I would not post untill monday. But the enormity of what is transpiring on ESPN right now bears some form of mention in the present. Normaly a returning conference champ beating up on a middle of the team from some other conference would not be that big of a deal. It does become a big deal though when the conference champ is from a non BCS conference, at a school of the non Boise/Hawaii/TCU variety. When the school doing the beating is from the Sun Belt, thats kind of a big deal. Much has been made of the sturggles of the Mid Majors this season. Fallin flat when the lights were the biggest, Boise State going down to Washington, TCU getting pounded into second half submission against Texas and Hawaii’s near choke job against Bulldogs of Louisiana Tech, and last night TCU getting beaten with the passing game of Air Force. Most of the attention has been focused on those schools all summer. So when the name brands come up short, the achievments of their non BCS brethren get overshadowed. Middle Tennessee’s near miss with Louisiville and UNLV’s game with Wisconsin both got overlooked last week.

But here I sit on a friday night, home from the bars early, gearing up for my first full day of College Football leisure, tommarow. I flip on to see how many yards Bobby Reid and Adarius Bowman have cranked out when to my shock I find that it is not Reid and Bowman that are lighting it up. Instead I find that Omar Haugabook and Troy are lighting up the tackeling optional defense of the Pokes. I think this points the way to a very exciting day of games tommarow.

Sun Belt Shit

Of all of the conferences at the highest levels of the game the Sun Belt is the bitch. In 2001 the Sun Belt decided to become a conference at the Bowl Sub-Division level. There is not a school in the conference who has been at the highest level of play for more than 30 years. Florida International and Florida Atlantics programs are both young, 5 and 6 years old respeictibly. As I see it the Sun Belt is the conference of choice for those who wish to make the jump from the Championship Sub-Division to the bowl level.

Now if the NCAA enforced their own rules regaurding attendance of 15,000 on average for one of three years to remain included in FBS consideration, most of the conference would be relegated to the FCS but they don’t so they aren’t. To the majority of the country the Sun Belt, and it’s teams are nothing but the cupcake on the schedual of their favorite team to start the year. And indeed most of the teams are forced to take check games from power programs across the country in an attempt to make ends meet for their various Athletic Departments. The Sun Belt plays 26 games against BCS foes. An average of over 3 per team, and Florida International plays all 5 non conference games against BCS programs Penn State, Miami, Maryland, Kansas and Arkansas and they have a new coach. Fun.

This conference is by far the most volitle one to predict. In most other conferences there is an established heirarchy, molded and shaped over years of playing each other. There are always a few programs who camp out at the top of the conference and stay in those general spots for decades at a time. That is not the type of thing that can happen in the SBC for a couple of reasons. The Membership of the SUn Belt changes a high rate. When a program wants to make the jump from 1AA to 1A they either do it as independant, or they join the Sun Belt. The SBC has only been a conference on the 1A level for 6 years but 11 differnt schools have been a member of the 8 team confernce. Because of that frequent turn over there has not been a historical heirarchy. North Texas had one in the early years but they have since fallen off the proverbial map since having back to back national rushing champions.  Without that the conference has become hard to predict with any assurance of certinty. Now, time for some acctual predictions

Standings

1. Florida Atlantic
2. Troy
3. Middle Tennessee State
4. Louisiana Monroe
5. Arkansas State
6. North Texas
7. Louisiana Lafayette
8. Florida International

Florida Atlantic and Troy are on equal footing, or a fairly closely packed together so the SBC race will boil down to one game, at least thats the thinking while sitting here in July. It is stupid to predict a game that will be played in December at this point, but to make a definitve prediction of the conference it is something that had to be done. And in that game between Troy and FAU the skill possitions seem to offset each other with Troy having the better backfield and FAU having better perimiter weapons. But there is one area that is a landslide for FAU. They have much better lineplay than Troy, or rather they look like they have much better lineplay, returning 4 of 5 starters. FAU also will have a much better defense. They allowed 14 ppg in conference play but that is not why I picked them. I picked them because they have every starter from last years front 7 coming back with experience and only have one new starter in the secondary. That’s 10 of 11 back from last years defense. The coaching edge goes to FAU in a landslide, Howard Schnellenberger will do that for you.

Conference Notes

Watch out for North Texas in coming years, Mark Dodge is a hell of a coach and is doing a bang up job in recruiting so far, his son Reily decommited from Texas to play for the Mean Green….Middle Tennessee has not lived up to expectations in the Sun Belt, when the move to 1A was made the Blue Raiders looked like a lock to dominate the conference but have not won an outright championship after losing to Troy in the final week last season….Jamario Thomas is the best Pro-Prospect in the conference. 5’11″ 215 pounds with good burst and toughness, he will get the longest look of all the Sun Belt players if the offensive line can come together after two straight abysmal seasons….The Sun Belt will become home to another IAA upstart in 2009. Western Kentucky will become the 9th Football member.

All Conference Team 

QB: Omar Haugabook, Troy

RB: Jamario Thomas, N Texas

RB: Reggie Arnold, ASU

WR: Derrick Smith, ULL

WR: Frantz Simeon, FAU

TE: Zeek Zacharie, ULM

OT: Mark Mandich, ASU

OT: Chris Jamison, Troy

OG: Chad Rose, N Texas

OG: Jarrid Smith, FAU

C: Adam Hill, ULM

 

DE: Tavares Jones, MTSU

DT: Josh Pinnick, FAU

DT: Jervonte Jackson, FAU

DE: Kenny Mainor, Troy

LB: Cergile Sincere, FAU

LB: Josh Thompson, ULM

LB: Koby McKinnon, ASU

CB: Brad Robinson, MTSU

S: Tyrell Johnson, ASU

S: Damon Nickson, MTSU

CB: Kyle Ward, ULL

 

K: Drew Edmiston, ULL

P: Truman Spencer, N Texas

KR: Damon Nickerson, MTSU

PR: Frantz Simeon, FAU