SBC Teams Have Close Weekend, Show Competitive Spirit
South Alabama will go from facing FAU, a team who has not won a Sun Belt Conference game this season, to Louisiana-Monroe who has not lost a Sun Belt Conference game this season.
ULM has been part of the reason why the Sun Belt Conference is having it’s best season ever. They defeated Arkansas after coming from behind and nearly defeated Auburn. They also played Baylor very close.
Middle Tennessee State defeated Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Western Kentucky defeated Kentucky. They all turned the national spotlight on a conference trying to get better and to be mentioned among the top of the “non-AQ” conferences.
This past weekend was another example of the competition in the Sun Belt. The Jags defeated FAU in double overtime for their first-ever FBS win.
ULM defeated Western Kentucky 43-42 in overtime on the road where ULM went for a two-point conversion for the win. This was after they trailed 28-7 in the second quarter. Both teams had been unbeaten in Sun Belt play.
Troy’s Will Scott hit a 42 yard field goal with 11 seconds left for the Trojans first home win this season.
Furthermore on Tuesday night of last week, North Texas upset Louisiana-Lafayette 30-23 when they had trailed 20-7 in the second half.
More Conference sparks could fly this evening when Arkansas State (4-3, 2-1 SBC) travels to ULL (4-2, 2-1 SBC) for the Tuesday night game on one of the ESPN networks. Then this weekend South Alabama (2-5, 1-2 SBC) travels to ULM (5-2, 3-0 SBC), Troy (4-3, 3-2 SBC) visits FAU (1-6, 0-4 SBC), North Texas (3-4, 2-1 SBC) travels to MTSU (4-3, 2-1 SBC) and finally Western Kentucky (5-2, 2-1 SBC) visits FIU (1-7, 0-4 SBC).
Mind you, FIU is winless in conference play while they were the preseason pick to win the conference championship.
Troy, FAU, ULL and South Alabama all have non-conference games left this season where they can put their name, and the Sun Belt’s name, back in the headlines again this season. We’ll just have to wait and see.