Sun Belt Hopes For Six Bowl Eligible Teams
The Sun Belt hopes to have six bowl-eligible teams this season. So far they have two in Louisiana-Monroe (6-2, 4-0 SBC) and Western Kentucky (6-2, 3-1 SBC) so far that are bowl eligible over this past weekend. Neither team has been to an FBS bowl game.
Last season the Sun Belt had a conference record four schools bowl eligible and they hope to improve on that number.
Arkansas State is 5-3 and one win away from being bowl-eligible. They will be favored to win over North Texas this week. They then have a home game on Thursday night against the top team in the conference in Louisiana-Monroe, then a trip to Troy and the regular season finale against MTSU at home.
Middle Tennessee is also 5-3 after recovering from an opening season loss to McNeese State. Their other losses were against the top Sun Belt team ULM and Mississippi State. They have a big game against Western Kentucky this Thursday night before they come to Mobile to play the Jags, followed by Troy at home and a trip to Arkansas State for the season finale.
Louisiana-Lafayette are 4-3 and have lost two in a row. They have been bitten by the injury bug lately. They have a trip to ranked Florida this week before returning home to face WKU, then South Alabama at home before traveling to FAU to end the season.
Troy is 4-4 and are coming off of a loss against FAU in Florida. They may have played themselves out of a bowl game with that loss but can still get bowl eligible. They travel to Tennessee this weekend then return home to play Navy and Arkansas State before closing the season at Middle Tennessee. None of those are gimmie’s so if they can finish 2-2 they can be bowl eligible.
North Texas is 3-5 but still have to play some of the top teams in the Sun Belt. But their win over Wagner cannot be used towards bowl eligibility which means they have to win out or hope that they can squeeze in because a lack of bowl eligible teams to fill the bowl slots. They have to play at Navy, at WKU then host South Alabama.
FAU is 2-6 and would have to win out for eligibility and FIU has been eliminated from eligibilty.
South Alabama would need to at least four wins and hope that there are not enough teams to fill bowl obligations to have a shot at going to a bowl.