CBSSports Conference Power Rankings This Week
Chip Patterson, a blogger for CBSSports.com, posted his Conference Power Rankings for September 18. While the top conference will not surprise you, you may be surprised at who is ranked at the “top of the rest” as many would say.
First, he ranked the “Cupcake King Power Rankings” as he called it. These are teams who played the most FCS games so far this season.
- 1. ACC (12 games)
- 2. Big 12 (9 games) & Mountain West (9 games)
- 4. MAC (8 games) & PAC 12 (8 games)
His Conference Power Rankings for the 11 conferences. Note the top 6 conferences are typically called “The Big 6”:
- SEC
- Big 12
- Pac 12
- Big 10
- Big East
- ACC
- Sun Belt
- MAC
- WAC
- Mountain West
- C-USA
Not long ago there was an article about how the Sun Belt had set it’s sights on C-USA, but right now C-USA is in the cellar according to Chip.
If you want to read Chip’s original article, which outlines some of his criteria for his rankings as well as statistics that went into his rankings, click here.
Sun Belt Looking For New Conference Headquarters
The Sun Belt Conference may not be calling New Orleans home much longer according to SportsNOLA.com. The conference office has called New Orleans for the home for their offices for the past two decades.
Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson said that the conference is considering their current home New Orleans along with Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Memphis and Birmingham as possible sites for the league’s men’s and women’s basketball tournaments as well as a potential home for the conference office.
The University of New Orleans is no longer a member of the Sun Belt Conference, but New Orleans still has ties to the league in the R&L Carrier New Orleans Bowl that invites the Sun Belt Champion each season.
Among the other cities that are under consideration, only two of them have Sun Belt schools located within or very nearby. Atlanta has Georgia State who will be joining the conference in 2013 and Nashville with long-time member Middle Tennessee State nearby.
The basketball tournaments are contracted to play in Hot Springs, Arkansas through the 2013-2014 season, but the city also has a 30-day window after the 2013 tournament to exclusively negotiate another contract with the Sun Belt.
Benson toured the Gwinnett Arena with members of Georgia State’s athletic department and the Atlanta Sports Council. Benson said he liked the facilities.
“The priority is finding the right location for our basketball tournament,” Benson said. The Conferences wishes to find a location that will be good for fans to travel to and that will provide a good experience for the fans that will result in better attendance. With the conference spread from Texas to Florida, he said somewhere central would be ideal.
Last seasons’ championship game between Western Kentucky and North Texas was attended by 4,216. The men’s tournament had a total attendance of 16,109 while the women had a total attendance of 13,253.
Benson said that Atlanta is “very, very preliminary.”
Mobile Native John Hartwell To Be Introduced As Troy’s New AD On Friday
On Wednesday, Troy University announced that Mobile native John Hartwell was selected to be the next Athletic Director for the University. Hartnell comes from Ole Miss where he has spent the last nine years in their athletic department. He is in his third year as the schools senior executive associate AD which is the schools number two administrator in athletics.
He will be officially introduced as the Troy AD in a press conference scheduled for Friday.
He will take over for Steve Dennis who abruptly resigned from his position earlier this year to seek other career opportunities. Dennis was in his eighth year as the Trojan’s AD.
Former South Alabama athletic director Joe Gottfried has known Hartwell for a long time. Hartwell played basketball alongside his son Mark, who is the head basketball coach at NC State.
Hartwell is a 1987 graduate of The Citadel and spent more than four years as a CPA with Ernst & Young before returnig to The Citadel to act as the director of an internal audit in 1991. During his three years at The Citadel, he was also the color commentator for the Citadel Network covering basketball. He then served as the CFO for a beverage distributor on the South Carolina coast from 1994-1997.
Hartwell began in athletics administration as an assisstant AD for business at Georgia State in 1997. He was later promoted to associate AD for internal affairs in 1999 and his reponsibilities grew to include sport supervision for Baseball, Men’s and Women’s Golf and Men’s and Women’s Track and Cross Country.
Hartwell also had oversight of athletics facilities and game management in addition to his previous responsibilities of all financial aspects of the department. While at Georgia State, he would earn a Master’s Degree in Sports Administration.
Thursday Night SBC Scores
McNeese State – 27
@ MTSU – 21
McNeese opened up a 24-6 lead through the first three quarters that MTSU just could not overcome. Though they did score 15 in the fourth quarter as they attempted a comeback.
MTSU gave up 298 yards rushing and 450 total yards while only gaining 103 yards rushing and 343 yards total. McNeese also led the time of possession stat 36:05 to 23:55. McNeese actually had 51 rushing attempts in the game.
Future Member:
South Carolina State – 33
@ Georgia State – 6
Georgia State only managed 96 yards in the first half against SC State on Thursday night in the Georgia Dome while SC State racked up 247 yards. SC State gained 488 total yards, 300 yards through the air alone on 19-29 passing. Georgia State gained 229 total yards only 99 rushing. Actually, Georgia State had more yards punting than of total offense.
Georgia State has gone with a hurry-up offense that was negated by an offensive line that allowed six sacks. Also the new 4-2-5 defense allowed 488 total yards starting with a 72 yard touchdown pass when the defender fell down.
GSU’s defense was on the field for 78 plays while the offense could not give them a rest going 2-of-13 on 3rd down conversions.
Sun Belt Looks To Catch C-USA, Mountain West Conferences
Ralph Russo, an AP College Football writer, published a piece on Yahoo! Sports this week about the Sun Belt Conference aiming to catch Conference-USA and the Mountain West as being the “best of the rest” conference.
The Sun Belt is now 10 years old and up until now they have been considered among the lower end of the “have-not” conferences. But they continue to take small steps forward amongst its peer conferences. Last year the Sun Belt tallied a 7-6 record against their peer conferences.
They finished the season with a 5-2 record against Conference-USA. C-USA is their direct competition in the region for players, attention and even schools most recently as they will be adding Florida International and North Texas from the Sun Belt next season.
“The goal of the Sun Belt right now is to be the best of the quote, ‘below the line conferences,'” Benson is quoted in the article. “There’s going to be five (conferences) above the line and five below the line. The Sun Belt’s goal is going to be to compete with those other conferences.”
Troy University President Jack Hawkins was quoted from an email sent to the AP in the article as well. “In my estimation the competitive position of the Sun Belt exceeds its ‘brand,'” he said. “This will change very soon. When its brand matches reality, the Sun Belt will equal or exceed several non-AQ (automatic qualifier) conferences it sought to emulate just a few years ago.”
Recently the WAC announced this will be it’s last season as a football conference. This was after Carl Benson took over the Sun Belt Commissioner spot after Wright Waters announced his retirement earlier this year. He led the WAC through 17 years of almost constant change.
The dominoes of conference realignment fell this past offseason when the Mountain West Conference rebuilt itself after losing schools to the ACC to fill spots left when schools left the ACC for the Big East and the Big 12. The Mountain West added schools from the WAC. C-USA lost schools to the ACC as well and raided the Sun Belt for Florida International and North Texas to fill empty spots.
Additionally, C-USA will be adding Texas-San Antonio who some thought the Sun Belt was interested in adding.
After losing two schools, the Sun Belt was quick to add two football schools, both from lower divisions to fill their empty slots. Georgia State, who began football in 2010, and Texas State who will play in the WAC as a transitional team in 2012. Benson also added Texas-Arlington as a second non-football school to replace Denver University and compliment Arkansas-Little Rock who also does not sponsor football.
The Sun Belt, like their peer conferences, typically schedule a number of “upper tier” schools for what most people call “money games.” These games are scheduled without a guarantee of a return game and often pay upwards of $1 millions these days.
Benson would like to see this change in favor of playing more games against peer conferences. “We’ve talked about scheduling philosophy, scheduling strategy. Ideally we’d like to establish across the board some scheduling parameters that would limit those guarantee games to one a year,” Benson was quoted as saying.
Western Kentucky is adopting that philosophy. According to the schools president, they are limiting themselves to one single-game contract per year. This season they have a single-game contract with the University of Alabama, they play FCS Austin Peay as their version of a guarantee game, then a sort of rivalry with Kentucky and a home game against Southern Miss.
South Alabama somewhat adopted that philosophy too it seems. But they have been scheduling two-for-one’s with some members of the “upper tier” conferences. The Jags are currently in the midst of series with N.C. State where they travel to Raleigh twice (2011, 2012) for a sincle return game in Mobile (2015) and Kent State (2011, 2012 and in Mobile 2013). They also have similar contracts with Tulane, Oklahoma State and Mississippi State for future schedules.
But the Jags also have money games on the horizon as well. They have single game contracts with Tennessee, Georgia, Nebraska (x2), LSU and Ole Miss. But these, similarly to WKU, are limited to one per season.
As Benson points out to Russo, “What my goal would be is for the Sun Belt to enhance our assets, our characteristics, so if and when the time comes that Conference USA comes looking to the Sun Belt for a replacement team because Conference USA lost school A, B or C, that the Sun Belt member will look at what the Sun Belt provides and come to the conclusion that there’s no reason for us to leave the Sun Belt.”
What the conference needs to do is to expand to 12 football schools. Why do they need to do this? They need a conference championship game.
The extra game for the conference would bring in lots of revenue for the conference. But the television exposure could be worth just as much. This game would be one of only seven or eight games that weekend. But who do you add?
You can read his article at Yahoo! Sports here.
ULL’s Hudspeth Named Outstanding College Coach In Louisiana
University of Louisiana-Lafayette head football coach Mark Hudspeth was named the Outstanding College Coach for the state of Louisiana as part of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Greater New Orleans Awards.
He will be honored along with Christi Orgeron, who was recognized as the Outstanding Female Amateur from New Orleans.
Under Hudspeth, ULL improved the Cajun’s from a 3-9 record in 2010 to a 9-4 record in 2011 which included a thrilling win over San Diego State in the New Orleans Bowl. That was their first bowl game in 41 years and tied the school record of nine wins in a season. They were also a perfect 5-0 at home.
Additionally, they set a school and conference record with an average attendance per game of 29,171. That was an increase of 11,788 per game which lead the nation in attendance increase.
The Jags will travel to face the Rajin’ Cajun’s on November 24, one week before the Jags travel to Hawaii to end their regular season.
Know Your Stadiums – Texas State’s Bobcat Stadium
Texas State is one of the new additions to the Sun Belt in 2013 along with Georgia State. The Jags fans have already visited Georgia State last season and played in the Georgia Dome which they call home. Even though the Jags does not play the Bobcats this season, let’s get to know the Texas State Bobcats home stadium.
Texas State will play their first season in FBS with the WAC this season before joining the Sun Belt next summer. They broke ground on Bobcat Stadium in 1979 and was completed and opened in 1981. In 2009 the first phase of a multi-phased expansion was completed to grow the capacity to over 16,000 seats by adding onto the existing home side. The addition included new premium club seating with 450 seats and 15 luxury suites.
In 2010 a new playing surface was installed along with new video screens and scoreboard were added to the stadium. For this season, they added the North End Zone COmplex to increase seating to over 30,000 seats. This new complex also includes the new Mark and Linda Smith Bobcat Ticket Office, three fan shops selling game-day attire, new dressing rooms for the visiting teams and game officials, a new track and field locker room and offices, weight and training rooms.
Here is a dated photo of Bobcat stadium.
An old photo of Texas State’s Bobcat Stadium.
This is the diagram for the current layout
Artist rendering of Bobcat Stadium.
There are opportunities to park near the stadium. There is a parking lot on the east side of the stadium. Another one in the southwest corner of the stadium and a wedge shaped one a little further west of that one. General public pay parking is $10 starting at 9am on game days in the Northwest portion of the Strahan Coliseum Lot (looks like the wedge shaped parking lot referenced previously). But there is also free parking options with shuttle service according to their website.
Three SBC Players Named To Doak Walker Watchlist
Three Sun Belt Conference running backs have been named to the Doak Walker Award Watchlist. Nominations for the award will be accepted through October.
Florida International’s Kendrick Rhodes, Middle Tennessee’s Benny Cunningham and Troy’s Shawn Southward were the three from the conference included in the list.
The PwC SMU Athletics Forum Board of Directors will name the semi-finalists on November 9 then the Doak Walker Award National Selection Committee, which consists of former NFL All-Pro and college All-America running backs, media members and selected special representatives, will cast votes to determine the finalists, which will be announced on November 19th. Then the committee will cast a second vote beginning on November 26th to determine who the recipient will be.
Other high-profile runningbacks on the watchlist are Montee Ball (Wisc.), Knile Davis (Ark.), Eddie Lacy (Ala.), Marcus Latimore (South Carolina), Onterio McCalebb (Aub.), Curtis McNeal (Southern Cal.) and Joseph Randle (Ok. State) among others.
Troy AD Abruptly Announces Resignation
Troy University is prepping a search committee after the abrupt announcement by Athletics Director Steve Dennis of his plans to resign from his position effective September 30, the day after South Alabama plays their first Sun Belt game versus Troy in Mobile.
Dennis did not give a reason for his announcement which was released via a short statement by the University’s athletics media relations department.
Troy University is a special place and I have been privileged to play a role in the growth and development of its athletic program over the past seven-and-one-half years. The University will always hold a special place in my heart and my family will always be a TROY family.
I have presented my resignation as Director of Athletics to Chancellor Hawkins effective September 30. Our athletic department has accomplished a great deal at TROY, and I believe this is the right time in my life to explore other opportunities. In announcing my departure, I thank the members of the coaching and support staffs of the Department of Athletics and I cannot thank Chancellor Hawkins enough for giving me this opportunity. He is a tremendous leader but most of all he is a great human being and it has been a privilege to work for and learn from him. I am sure that great things lie ahead for Trojan athletics and I look forward to watching the growth and maturity of the program in the years to come.”
Dennis played football at Georgia where he was a defensive captain in 1978, is a former assistant coach at Auburn where he was on the staff with Troy head football coach Larry Blakeney.
Erdmann Appointed To NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament Selection Committee
USA Director of Athletics Dr. Joel Erdmann.
The University of South Alabama Athletics Director Dr. Joel Erdmann has been appointed to the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament selection committee. Dr. Erdmann will begin his first term with the committee on September 1, 2012 and runs through September 1, 2016.
Committee members are selected by geographical location to assure equal representations across the nation. THeir responsiblities are the oversight of the College World Series which is held in Omaha, Nebraska each year and the continual exposure of the sport nationally. They also select and seed the field for the NCAA Tournament each spring.
Erdmann was notified of his appointment to the committee this past spring but had to go through a lengthy process to become a member. He was first nominated to be on the 10-member Sun Belt Conference committee, then in conjunction with a nomination, each potential candidate must then submit a justification as to why they would be qualified to server on the committee. They must also list any applicable past experience in a role or some type of knowledge or expertise in the sport that would be beneficial.
Erdmann has previously served on both the NCAA Division II Football Committee while at the University of North Alabama during 2006-2007 academic year. He also co-chaired the NCAA Division II Football Southeast Region Advisory Committee during his time with UNA. he was also an assistant coach at USA in 1996-1997 and a graduate assistant before that for the Jags during the 1992 season.
“I’m very humbled and honored to be nominated and selected to be on the committee,” Erdmann stated. “I think part of the benefit is to try and make sure the game itself is healthy and the championships are healthy and good. Any time a person can represent a university and a conference, that’s also a benefit and has some intangible benefits to it. I’m looking forward to serving on the committee. I think it will be a great experience. It’ll be a bit of work and a lot of time, but it’ll be well worth it.”