The Sun Belt Opens The Season With An Opportunity It Can’t Possibly Screw Up (Right?)

Never overestimate the Sun Belt’s capacity for calamity

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As I write this, the student news paper for the University of North Carolina has already declared the semester “a clusterfuck.”  Meanwhile, Notre Dame is reporting a big spike in COVID-19 cases. The MAC canceled its fall season, and the Big 10 and Mountain West followed suit.

Yet, some college football conferences are heroically plowing forward. Among them, although from opposite ends of the FBS spectrum: the SEC and the Sun Belt. Why? America needs football, damnit! Who cares that Major League Baseball can’t field a weekend of games without creating a pandemic hotspot? Or that the NBA has only maintained its health by sealing itself inside the World’s Happiest Bubble?  The Sun Belt and the SEC may be divided by tens hundreds of millions of dollars, but they are united by life’s universally accepted coin – hardheadedness .

Whether it is wise to host a football season in this “time of uncertainly” is up for debate. However, what’s absolutely clear is that the Sun Belt has an opportunity.

By the time the SEC plays its first game (of an incestuous 8-game schedule), the Sun Belt will already be 3-weeks deep into its own schedule. The Sun Belt will have applied its molten heat on the likes of Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and Memphis among others. That’s three weeks of owning the South with exclusive college football content. While SEC pundits are spitting out practice boring reports and cranky Saban quotes, the Sun Belt will be playing ACTUAL GAMES.

How does the Sun Belt handle this plum situation? The right answer is BALLSY, of course. But knowing the Sun Belt, and not knowing much about Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill (despite being on the job for more than a year and a half), the response will be prudent and cautious, and that’s just lame.

The Sun Belt should be negotiating a phat package with ESPN right now. Commissioner Gill ride a white steed right up to College Gameday’s throne and demand they visit some place ridiculous, like Monore. The SEC “Just Matters More?” For three weeks, they won’t even matter at all! 

By the time the SEC gets out of bed on September 26, the AP Top 25 will be stacked with laser hot Sun Belt (and whoever else manages to survive)! After all, how can you possibly rank a winless team three weeks in the season? You can’t, right?

We have three weeks, Sun Belt. Let’s make the most of them.

A former notary public, Jeremy Harper is a professional writer and Chief Instigator for Storm the Castle Creative. He spends much of his free time staring blankly into space. 

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Sun Belt NFL Draft: Who’s Making Dat Bank?

Time to make the donuts, y’all.

Contact @astatefanrules

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Let’s get this out of the way: The NFL Draft isn’t kind to the Sun Belt. We’re a Day 3 Conference with aspirations for someday becoming a Day 2. You know how badly it hurts to type that? I’m not some unfeeling keyboard commentator. I’m flesh and blood. Maybe more flesh than most.

Because I’m a patriotic Citizen of the Sun Belt, it is my duty to feel good about the 2020 NFL Draft, which opens proceedings on Thursday night and lumbers on through Saturday. Why feel so good, Sunrades? Nothing concrete, but the NFL Combine did invite 7 Belters to run, jump and perform feats of strength before grown men carrying clipboards. Seven isn’t a groundbreaking amount, but it’s four more than last year’s Combine and seven more invites than the MAC received this year.

Combine invites don’t guarantee a place in an NFL huddle. The Sun Belt received three invites last year and drafted one (1!) player. But there are other signs. For example, CBS College Sports has seven Sun Belt prospects ranked within the Top 255. But what do they know?

They likely know more than me. However, because I haven’t submitted content to this site in months (blame COVID19), I’ll go ahead a provide you my list of Sun Belt Superstars most likely to be selected on NFL Draft Day 2020.

Fo Sho

Akeem Davis-Gaither, LB, Appalachian State

Robert Hunt, OL, Louisiana

Kevin Dotson, OL, Louisiana

Prolly

Darrynton Evans, RB, Appalachian State

Omar Bayless, WR, Arkansas State

Tyler Bass, K, Georgia Southern

Meh-Meh

Kindle Vildor, DB, Georgia Southern

Kirk Merritt, WR, Arkansas State

Raymond Calais, RB, Louisiana

Get’n Robbed

Monquavion Brinson, DB, Georgia Southern

Ja’Marcus Bradley, WR, Louisiana

Victor Johnson, OL, Appalachian State

Kevin Thurmon, DE, Arkansas State

Bryan London, LB, Texas State

Jordon Fehr, LB, Appalachian State

Tra Minter, RB, South Alabama

Tra Barnett, RB, Georgia State

A former notary public, Jeremy Harper is a professional writer and Chief Instigator for Storm the Castle Creative. He spends much of his free time staring blankly into space. 

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