10. Sun Belt

This isn’t all that fair – the Sun Belt up top could be an absolute killer with teams good enough to compete with almost anyone. Idaho and New Mexico State have one year left in the league before getting the boot, but they’re each coming with their best respective teams since joining the league. ULM and Texas State will be a problem, but Louisiana-Lafayette is about to bounce back, South Alabama is okay, and Troy is ramping up the offense.

The key, though, will be the battle for the championship with Arkansas State, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern all terrific. It’s going to be a fun league fight before the configuration changes up.

http://collegefootballnews.com/2016/post...e-rankings

Yeah, from Withers statements after Spring ball I'm not at all optimistic for 2016.

For the SBC to improve its image and move up in the rankings, each of our teams must win some or all of their OOC games . . especially OOC games against other G5s.

Beating up on each other in Conference games and then losing the OOC games does not earn respect.

We should be happy with the hopeful tenor of our #10 ranking. Can't say that I disagree with the author until we prove otherwise.

I wonder if writers just save time and cut and paste these "predictions" for all of their pre-season articles.

Can't say I disagree. I always enter the season hopeful for SBC success in OOC. With the exception of 3 or 4 wins the last few years we've looked pretty bad.

We are better than the MAC overall I believe. GS ended up third in the Belt and we crushed their conf champion and division co champion. App also beat Ohio. Toledo is only team that finished strong and had a decent bowl win amongst their top teams.

I'm just glad to see Georgia State getting a positive mention.

Oh, wait a minute...make that every team in the league except Georgia State getting a positive mention.

This might be a rough year for South, y'all. Don't be mad at us if we go 0-3 against our FBS OOC teams. We have 2 SEC teams (one a national championship favorite) and 1 against a possible top 25 SDSU team. Just remember we've helped with FBS OOC wins every year we've been in the Sun Belt as FBS, so don't be mad!
2013: Tulane, Kent State
2014: Kent State;
2015: SDSU

We almost had Tennessee in 2013 and Navy in 2014. We need our SBC brethren to help us out this year.

(05-03-2016 09:02 AM)JCGSU Wrote:  We are better than the MAC overall I believe. GS ended up third in the Belt and we crushed their conf champion and division co champion. App also beat Ohio. Toledo is only team that finished strong and had a decent bowl win amongst their top teams.

In general our top tier teams are better than the MAC's top tier but overall we still lag behind them as a conference. This year can be the year that changes all of that by us killing our G5 OOC.

Looking at the G5 teams we play in OOC I see:

Wins
App over ODU
App over Akron
stAte over Utah St.
GS over W. Mich.
GA St over Ball St
Idaho over UNLV
NMSU over New Mexico
ULL over Tulane
Troy over UMASS

Toss up games
stAte vs Toledo
GA St vs Air Force
NMSU vs UTEP
TX St vs Ohio
Troy vs S. Miss.
ULM vs New Mexico

If we in the G5 games we should and then win at least half of the toss up games we will have taken that huge step forward.

(05-03-2016 09:08 AM)Pounce FTW Wrote:  I'm just glad to see Georgia State getting a positive mention.

Oh, wait a minute...make that every team in the league except Georgia State getting a positive mention.

"ULM and Texas State will be a problem" is as far from positive as you can get....

(05-05-2016 11:26 AM)_x_ Wrote:  

(05-03-2016 09:08 AM)Pounce FTW Wrote:  I'm just glad to see Georgia State getting a positive mention.

Oh, wait a minute...make that every team in the league except Georgia State getting a positive mention.

"ULM and Texas State will be a problem" is as far from positive as you can get....

Well... "South Alabama is [just] okay."