University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana UnLimited -- The New Sun Belt
7/11/2022 5:37:00 PM | Louisiana UnLimited
How about this for irony? There are a lot more universities and a lot more people happy that they're holding membership in the Sun Belt Conference today than there are schools and folks content with their affiliations in a couple of "Power Five" leagues.
With the turmoil and upheaval that has recently taken place in conference affiliations – with unquestionably more to come – it's refreshing to hear the comments from the newest members of the Sun Belt.
"I woke up this morning really excited," Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain said on July 1, the official date that the Golden Eagles along with Marshall, Old Dominion and James Madison became Sun Belt Conference members. "I think this is a step in a very positive direction for us."
"It really is not just a great thing for athletics," said James Madison AD Jeff Bourne. "It's a wonderful opportunity for our entire university exposure wise. It's going to give us a chance to showcase some of the other things we do on our campus."
The most telling comments likely came from Old Dominion athletic director Dr. Wood Selig, on the day that a large contingent of Sun Belt staffers made a site visit to ODU in mid-April.
"It gave me an idea of what the future in the Sun Belt Conference is going to be like," Selig said. "It's going to be very strategic, very systematic. But there was more than that. The Sun Belt people kept asking 'How can we help you? How can we be the best conference for our members?' That was so refreshing to hear."
The four new members include three schools from Conference USA – USM, Marshall and Old Dominion – along with James Madison, a former member of the Colonial who's making the step up to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) as part of its Sun Belt membership.
ODU left behind a C-USA league that is a shadow of its former self, and that move had to be a satisfying one for Selig. Throughout a storied 11-year run of success as athletic director at Western Kentucky (70 conference titles in all sports), the Hilltoppers were one of the stalwart programs in the Sun Belt.
Four years after Selig left WKU for the ODU post, Western unceremoniously left the Sun Belt for C-USA membership in 2014. At the time, the Sun Belt was considered at the bottom of the Group of Five conferences in football.
Now, eight years later, the Sun Belt is revered as the premier Group of Five league on the gridiron, and has parlayed that success into a greater national reputation than at any time in the conference's long history. While other Group of Five leagues struggled to retain membership (the American Athletic Conference raiding C-USA after its power programs bolted for the Big 12, and C-USA picking up whatever schools it could find), there was never a report of any Sun Belt schools looking for other affiliations, and the four new additions now make the league even more a national player.
There's little question that the new East Division of the Sun Belt immediately becomes the strongest football division in the Group of Five … even with defending league champion Louisiana remaining in a West Division that gets a huge geographical and tradition-based boost with the addition of Southern Miss.
"Aligning in a conference with institutions that look like us, that are on a similar track, that are within our footprint, all those things matter," McClain said.
Six Sun Belt schools are within a five-hour drive of Hattiesburg – a place that long-time Louisiana fans are very familiar with after years of multi-sport rivalries between the Ragin' Cajuns and the Golden Eagles. In C-USA, there were only two schools within 350 miles of the USM campus, and one (UTEP) was a 1,000-mile jaunt.
But it wasn't just about mileage and geography. Years ago, Conference USA expanded by going after universities and programs in major markets in a search for greater television exposure. More recently with the foresight of former commissioner Karl Benson, the Sun Belt expanded by going after programs in smaller cities but with powerful athletic traditions, especially in football.
Now, which one looks like the wiser choice? Instead of going after major TV markets, the Sun Belt continued to hitch its wagon to ESPN, a move in which former commissioner Wright Waters was a huge proponent. With the arrival and continued expansion of the ESPN+ platform, the Sun Belt may have the best television exposure of any league outside the Power Five, and that exposure is going nowhere but up with the future commitments between the network and the league. In July, the Sun Belt expanded and extended its ESPN deal through 2030-31, including 50 percent more football games on ESPN's linear networks and the majority of those games set for Saturday broadcasts instead of mid-week time slots.
Every football game hosted by a Sun Belt member, conference and non-conference – not to mention every men's and women's basketball game and scores of contests in other sports – airs on an ESPN platform. Good luck finding that same number of events in any other Group of Five league's television package.
"Our fans won't have to guess where our games are being broadcast," Selig said. "If you have the ESPN app, you have all of our football and basketball games. That is huge."
Geography, television exposure, stability … those points and others came up repeatedly during the six league officials' tour of the new members back in April, a tour that by all accounts was a rousing success … not to mention something different for many of the schools.
"We never before experienced that kind of a visit from league officials," said ODU Athletic Foundation and fundraising chair Jena Virga. "To be able to spend that kind of quality time was amazing. They wanted to know how they could help us, not how we could help them. That's something new."
Most Ragin' Cajuns fans are happiest about having Southern Miss back as a full-fledged conference opponent, something that hasn't happened since … well, never.
When USM announced it was leaving C-USA, the Golden Eagles were the final remaining original member of that league.
Long-time Ragin' Cajuns fans remember the glory days of USM football, since the schools were regularly on each other's schedules. That began to change in 1996 when USM joined forces with Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis and others to form Conference USA. A move that could hardly be blamed with that level of affiliation. But three major realignments later, C-USA bears no resemblance to that group.
The Eagles were a model program for Louisiana during the "independent" days, and as recently as 2011 USM set a school record for wins (12), finished 20th in the final AP poll and were within nine points of a perfect record. Since then, football success has been limited, but as those same Cajun fans can point to with pride, that can change in a hurry.
"We have an opportunity to be better positioned in all areas than where we have been in the past," McClain said.
With their help and the help of the other new members, so is the Sun Belt.
With the turmoil and upheaval that has recently taken place in conference affiliations – with unquestionably more to come – it's refreshing to hear the comments from the newest members of the Sun Belt.
"I woke up this morning really excited," Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain said on July 1, the official date that the Golden Eagles along with Marshall, Old Dominion and James Madison became Sun Belt Conference members. "I think this is a step in a very positive direction for us."
"It really is not just a great thing for athletics," said James Madison AD Jeff Bourne. "It's a wonderful opportunity for our entire university exposure wise. It's going to give us a chance to showcase some of the other things we do on our campus."
The most telling comments likely came from Old Dominion athletic director Dr. Wood Selig, on the day that a large contingent of Sun Belt staffers made a site visit to ODU in mid-April.
"It gave me an idea of what the future in the Sun Belt Conference is going to be like," Selig said. "It's going to be very strategic, very systematic. But there was more than that. The Sun Belt people kept asking 'How can we help you? How can we be the best conference for our members?' That was so refreshing to hear."
The four new members include three schools from Conference USA – USM, Marshall and Old Dominion – along with James Madison, a former member of the Colonial who's making the step up to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) as part of its Sun Belt membership.
ODU left behind a C-USA league that is a shadow of its former self, and that move had to be a satisfying one for Selig. Throughout a storied 11-year run of success as athletic director at Western Kentucky (70 conference titles in all sports), the Hilltoppers were one of the stalwart programs in the Sun Belt.
Four years after Selig left WKU for the ODU post, Western unceremoniously left the Sun Belt for C-USA membership in 2014. At the time, the Sun Belt was considered at the bottom of the Group of Five conferences in football.
Now, eight years later, the Sun Belt is revered as the premier Group of Five league on the gridiron, and has parlayed that success into a greater national reputation than at any time in the conference's long history. While other Group of Five leagues struggled to retain membership (the American Athletic Conference raiding C-USA after its power programs bolted for the Big 12, and C-USA picking up whatever schools it could find), there was never a report of any Sun Belt schools looking for other affiliations, and the four new additions now make the league even more a national player.
There's little question that the new East Division of the Sun Belt immediately becomes the strongest football division in the Group of Five … even with defending league champion Louisiana remaining in a West Division that gets a huge geographical and tradition-based boost with the addition of Southern Miss.
"Aligning in a conference with institutions that look like us, that are on a similar track, that are within our footprint, all those things matter," McClain said.
Six Sun Belt schools are within a five-hour drive of Hattiesburg – a place that long-time Louisiana fans are very familiar with after years of multi-sport rivalries between the Ragin' Cajuns and the Golden Eagles. In C-USA, there were only two schools within 350 miles of the USM campus, and one (UTEP) was a 1,000-mile jaunt.
But it wasn't just about mileage and geography. Years ago, Conference USA expanded by going after universities and programs in major markets in a search for greater television exposure. More recently with the foresight of former commissioner Karl Benson, the Sun Belt expanded by going after programs in smaller cities but with powerful athletic traditions, especially in football.
Now, which one looks like the wiser choice? Instead of going after major TV markets, the Sun Belt continued to hitch its wagon to ESPN, a move in which former commissioner Wright Waters was a huge proponent. With the arrival and continued expansion of the ESPN+ platform, the Sun Belt may have the best television exposure of any league outside the Power Five, and that exposure is going nowhere but up with the future commitments between the network and the league. In July, the Sun Belt expanded and extended its ESPN deal through 2030-31, including 50 percent more football games on ESPN's linear networks and the majority of those games set for Saturday broadcasts instead of mid-week time slots.
Every football game hosted by a Sun Belt member, conference and non-conference – not to mention every men's and women's basketball game and scores of contests in other sports – airs on an ESPN platform. Good luck finding that same number of events in any other Group of Five league's television package.
"Our fans won't have to guess where our games are being broadcast," Selig said. "If you have the ESPN app, you have all of our football and basketball games. That is huge."
Geography, television exposure, stability … those points and others came up repeatedly during the six league officials' tour of the new members back in April, a tour that by all accounts was a rousing success … not to mention something different for many of the schools.
"We never before experienced that kind of a visit from league officials," said ODU Athletic Foundation and fundraising chair Jena Virga. "To be able to spend that kind of quality time was amazing. They wanted to know how they could help us, not how we could help them. That's something new."
Most Ragin' Cajuns fans are happiest about having Southern Miss back as a full-fledged conference opponent, something that hasn't happened since … well, never.
When USM announced it was leaving C-USA, the Golden Eagles were the final remaining original member of that league.
Long-time Ragin' Cajuns fans remember the glory days of USM football, since the schools were regularly on each other's schedules. That began to change in 1996 when USM joined forces with Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis and others to form Conference USA. A move that could hardly be blamed with that level of affiliation. But three major realignments later, C-USA bears no resemblance to that group.
The Eagles were a model program for Louisiana during the "independent" days, and as recently as 2011 USM set a school record for wins (12), finished 20th in the final AP poll and were within nine points of a perfect record. Since then, football success has been limited, but as those same Cajun fans can point to with pride, that can change in a hurry.
"We have an opportunity to be better positioned in all areas than where we have been in the past," McClain said.
With their help and the help of the other new members, so is the Sun Belt.
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