Perhaps this has been brought up before, but I am curious about others' thoughts on how the Sun Belt schedules its rivalries.

All the P5 conferences pretty much have their biggest in-conference (or inter-conference, i.e., FSU-Florida, SC-Clemson, Ga. Tech-Georgia, etc.) rivalry games over Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the Sun Belt scatters Ga. Southern-App State, Ga. Southern-Ga. State, ULL-ULM, Ark. State-ULL, USA-Troy, etc., on random weekends throughout the year. Plus, the dates change every year. IIRC, the App-Ga. Southern game was in September last year.

I guess that since I like to keep up with college football in general, not just App State and the Sun Belt, I felt like our league is kind of missing out on what is otherwise, IMO, the most compelling weekend of the regular season. The league has the power to change that if it so chooses. The flip side is that what's best for P5 leagues isn't necessarily the best for ours, which maybe is why our rivalry games are spread all over the calendar.

Do you think the SBC should make one big rivalry weekend? If so, should it be Thanksgiving weekend or perhaps the weekend before?

I'd be in favor of the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving. Attendance suffers for all but the biggest schools with the largest fanbases that weekend, but students are still in town the weekend before. Plus, FWIW, the SEC all but takes a week off that weekend with a lot of FCS games. Might as well put the spotlight on our own rivalries.

I'm thinking these games would work best the weekend before Thanksgiving:

App State-Ga. Southern (let's go with the one with more history over the in-state rivalry)
Ga. State-Coastal (both are fairly new to the conference and aren't too far apart)
USA-Troy
Idaho-New Mexico State

I'll leave it up to fans of stAte, ULL, ULM, and Texas State which games would be the best. I could see ULL-ULM and stAte-Texas State so that the Louisiana schools could face off, or I could see ULL-stAte and ULM-Texas State so that the West's two most prominent programs could play each other.

What are your thoughts?