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Sun Belt Expansion Timeline

Appalachian State Mountaineers

I spoke with a top Sun Belt conference representative recently. Although he was understandably tight-lipped, I was able to get

John Miller

    • Do you think this will be legit? I got the feeling the SBC will be needing teams within a year due all the conference realignment. SBC will probably be the ones to give you guys a shot.

      Pir8TreasureNC

    • Pir8TreasureNC said...

      Do you think this will be legit? I got the feeling the SBC will be needing teams within a year due all the conference realignment. SBC will probably be the ones to give you guys a shot.

      Although we've been disappointed before, I think this is going to happen. From what I hear, WKU to CUSA is a foregone conclusion and the Sun Belt will add 3.

      App and Georgia Southern have been named by everyone I've spoken to, with the third being JMU or NMSU. I'd love to go with JMU but I think they will throw the Western teams a bone and split into East/West divisions.

      This post was edited by Mike Holloway on 3/2/2013 at 8:59 AM

      Mike Holloway

    • I'm worried that our admin won't accept the invite if NMSU is part of the deal. Cobb has really stressed geography as a key factor of our move.

      Appftw

    • The Sun Belt will definitely add at least 2 teams this year. I would be surprised if App State isn't one of them. If WKU leaves we become slightly more of an outlier, but the Sun Belt would also become slightly more desperate to add teams with very few real choices.

      This post was edited by John Miller on 3/22/2013 at 10:40 PM

      John Miller

    • Appftw said...

      I'm worried that our admin won't accept the invite if NMSU is part of the deal. Cobb has really stressed geography as a key factor of our move.

      If the sunbelt splits into two divisions I dont think it matters to much.

      east side fn

    • How many teams would the Belt need for two divisions? I thought it would have to be 12. From everything I've seen, the Sun Belt seems to only want 10 football schools.

      Appftw

    • You do need a minimum of 12 teams to break into divisions (and have a conference championship). I know this because the Big-12 has 10 teams and they wanted the NCAA to consider changing that rule.

      http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/03/qa_with_sun_belt_conference_co_1.html
      I got the impression from this interview with Karl Benson that they were pretty much set on 12 total schools but only 10 with football. That would mean they need to add 2 football schools (or 3 if WKU leaves for C-USA). They didn't rule out going to 12 football schools eventually though, depending on the details of the 2014 postseason football structure.

      With that 10/12 setup they could have divisions in everything but football, similar to the SoCon.

      This post was edited by John Miller on 3/13/2013 at 2:50 PM

      John Miller

    • Tweeted earlier today:
      "@ktik931fm: Troy AD said the Sun Belt wants to get to 12 teams in football by 2014, need 4 more. Idaho/NMSU are on"drawing board"”"

      John Miller

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