Every day, millions of people ask, “Who am I?” Countless books written by everyone from Marcus Aurelius to Oprah are trying to help people find answers. As Deepak Chopra writes, “Now we must do the work of self-awareness discovery ourselves.”
Now, in honor of the father of quantum healing, there’s one place where living like a flag tied in the middle of a tug of war doesn’t need help when it comes to self-awareness. Rope, the world of college athletics.
The people at the Sunbelt Conference Headquarters in New Orleans? they are ready to go You don’t need a self-help guide there. They know exactly who they are, where they are, what they want to be and where they want to go from here.
“At the end of the day, what makes football great is when you look at the whole field and look at the teams that you really, really want to beat, the teams that the fans really, really want to beat, the emotional game. It’s when you see ,” explains Appalachian. State head coach Sean Clark, former FCS All-American offensive lineman for the Mountaineers. “If you look at the conference schedule that Sunbelt put together for us, you see those kinds of games all over the calendar for the old-fashioned guys who played here.”
The SBC is now a 14-team league, clearly divided into two true regional divisions: East and West. When their football season begins on his September 2nd, it will be four new members, three departures from fellow G5 League Conference USA (Marshall, Southern Miss, Old Dominion) and James Madison’s one of his Starting with his FCS Super Power, who has been promoted. These new schools, along with the departure of his two far-flung non-football members, create a completely seamless corner of the American map. The school’s new Sun Belt roster begins in Virginia and sweeps through every state in the Deep South until it reaches central Texas.
The Sunbelt has maintained its division, leaned hard into regional rivalries, reconnected long-missed matchups lost in previous conference reorganizations, and explored where and how teams are doing it. also jumped into the FBS ranks.
This strategy, once the norm in college sports, is now completely countercultural. Oklahoma is actually in the Southeast and Los Angeles is in the Midwest and the number 10 really means 16 and the number 12 really is 10 now and will be 14 someday but for a while There will be 16 between
The Sunbelt represents stability and familiarity in a world where complaints about not even recognizing your favorite sport grow by the day.
“No, no, we were really careful. At the end of the day, we not only want our fans to be able to travel to the games, but we also want to be able to travel to the games they want to go to.” 2019 He took command of the SBC in April. Just two years later, just days after news broke that Texas and Oklahoma were leaving the Big 12 and he was heading to the SEC, Gill called the president and his director of athletics to discuss potential meetings. Planned reaction. .
We all knew the Big 12 were eyeing the American Athletic Conference and possibly beyond. In return, the Americans went shopping with the rest of the G5, and Gill deployed a strategy of revitalized regionalism, both as a form of defense and as a recruitment tool. Agreed, and phone calls with potential members began in earnest, especially where established history was involved.
Coastal Carolina Athletic Director Matt Hogue, who has been with Chanticleers for six years since 1997, said: It was before school played his first football game and he was 20 years before he reached FBS level. “But the proximity, mixed with some success, quickly caught fire. Appalachians love to come to the beach, and we beach people love to go to the mountains. We know each other very well. Now we’re fighting for. If you’ve been to these matches, they certainly don’t lack intensity.”
So are Louisiana and UL Monroe. Or South Alabama and Troy. Or Georgia and Southern Georgia. Any new school added to the roster slips into that chart of hostility like puzzle pieces. Anyone who knows the history of football in the region knows well that App State and Marshall, Marshall and Georgia Southern, or even Old Dominion and Georgia Southern don’t need time to launch. Their roots go back to playing in the FCS Championship. Keeping those fires burning is why Troy was moved to the more geographically logical West District, home to rival South Alabama. Southern Miss, though it’s a tough time right now, was also a soccer-obsessed school for many years and was a natural fit.
Georgia Southern’s new head coach Clay Helton said, “When you’re in the room with these coaches and players, you know they’re football people.” Talk about the times, play in the I-AA (FCS) National Championship, play Guess Who and have to do it? App State, Marshall, Old Dominion, Arkansas. Can’t wait to…in the stadium for these games.”
Even the decision to keep the two divisions was made with the motive of creating more rivalry tensions. It should lead to an “us versus them” battle the same way the split first did against the model’s founders, the SEC in the 1990s. .
It’s all a showdown story, one that fans can lather themselves into. Just like Sun Belt is unlikely to land a $7 billion TV deal. But that’s not the goal either.
Long-term SBC eyes are in two fields of view at the same time. The first is the postseason, the ongoing discussion about the expansion of the college football playoffs, which not only guarantees that there will be a place on the table in schools other than A5 (Autonomous 5), but some kind of bowl season model. maintain Mr Gill said: Our university and the rewards for the student-athletes they deserve. ”
Second, the idea of further restructuring is always looming, whether it’s bringing others into the SBC fold or strengthening the moats around New Orleans to potentially become conference raiders. increase.
“Now we’re definitely going to pause,” Gil says with a deep breath. We like what we have, we like our composition and it suits us perfectly.”
To do. And that brings us to the Sunbelt’s short-term goals. It’s as simple as it is noble. Put it in a meaningful, regional, passionate rivalry game that people who play good football and wear their school colors want to see. Please.
In other words, college sports are what they should be.
“We want people to know that we are here and that they appreciate the level and quality of the football we play,” says Gill. I think people think that if you’re not in the A5 league, you’re not playing quality football, you’re not working hard, etc. And that’s the furthest thing from the truth.Great product and , makes it really exciting for people to watch.
“Proximity creates value. It means the more people in the game, the more energy you get. It’s good TV, it’s good football.”
