Well we just finished year 1 for us in the Belt. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. It is very nice to be associated with similar schools to Ga. Southern. Schools like App. St., Troy, Arkansas St., Texas St. and others are very similar to Ga. Southern. All schools are public schools who care about athletics and are willing to put money into facilities. I am even more positive now than I was a year ago that this move to the Belt was the right move.
2. Little things like having 4 umpires for baseball games (the SoCon some years we were there only had 2), giving coaches a great deal of say in decisions about their particular sport, and teams being supportive of other conference schools in bowls or regionals are welcomed changes from some of our experience in our former conference.
3. Football in this conference means something. I know we have our bottom teams right now but overall it is a very competitive league with really 7 other schools other than GS who can beat each other on any given game. I think back to last year when we played ULM in the last game. They had nothing to play for---no chance at a bowl-- yet they played us that night to the wire. I gained alot of respect that night for them. I have high hopes for this league going forward if we can all stay together. It is nice to go on the road and play in front of crowds. In the SoCon there were many games over the years where we had as many if not more fans as the visiting team than the home team did.
4. In basketball I was pleasantly surprised to see us finish 2nd both in the regular season and the tourney. I am not sure that isn't a mixture of us having our best year in a long time and the league as a whole not being very strong. I can see the Ga. State/GS rivalry growing in basketball if we can keep up our end of the bargain. I know I may be in the minority but I enjoyed playing all teams home/home.
5. Baseball is a sport the Belt should be good and while this year there was no dominant team the league was very competitive 1-11. Unlike the SoCon the Sun Belt has some quality even down to the bottom teams in the standings. There were many, many 1,2 or 3 run games this year vs. the other 10 teams.
6. I like the Belt's policy of only taking the top 8 schools in the tournament in volleyball, softball, baseball, basketball, etc. It gives some meaning to the regular season. While I would change the set up for some of the tournaments I applaud the Belt's policy of basically allowing the coaches of that sport to decide how they want the tournament.
7. While our men's teams I think did very well in our first year we have some improving to do for our women's teams. I take our AD at his word when he said that at the very minimum we want all of our teams to at least be in the middle of the league. We replaced our women's basketball coach after this season and we may have other coaching changes on the women's side if we don't do better next year.
8. I have enjoyed this site exchanging ideas with other posters. We do have a element of our fanbase who enjoy bragging and antagonizing the opponents, but the majority of our fans recognize excellence and respect our conference mates. I know some of the other teams probably think during the App/GS game week that all GS fans are crazy but it is all in good fun. If you talk to most GS fans there is a high amount of respect for App. If the truth is known we know beating them (esp. in Boone) is quite an accomplishment.

Onward toward Year 2.