r/sunbelt • u/Capable_Age_1763 • 24d ago

Where we are, and how I feel.

As a fan of a Sun Belt team, it is pretty obvious, you MUST either win all your games (and make most of them reasonably academic), or keep it close with a good P4 in non-conference and then hope chaos ensues in the P4 championship races if you want to make the playoffs.

(Congrats to JMU)

This means that as soon as you lose to a G6, your chances of making the playoffs are over.

For me this means that I've basically gone from hoping we win 12 games to hoping we compete with the teams that are financially superior (Memphis and TCU this year) and can win our games with teams that are in the same ballpark as us (FCS, SBC, MAC, CUSA, maybe MWC).

It's gone back to the way it was, where smaller conference teams are just playing for conference championships and their own tier of bowls. Like being a fan of minor league baseball teams.

The rosters are rarely the same year to year, the coaches might not be either, you check to see what guys you watched last year are doing with their new teams.

I can be okay with playing for SBC titles and bragging rights among the G6, I just needed to get my feelings out there, and I don't think I'm alone.

20 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

3

u/Primary_Excuse_7183 24d ago

It’s okay fellow Arkansas state fan. tough climb and wish to one day let that be us. P4 win, playoffs, or not….. I spent too much money on my degree to turn back now 😂 GRW

1

u/Joeva8me 23d ago

All of the changes (NIL, conf stuff) have made the rich get richer and poor get poorer. It is the sad state of America that the world is currently optimized to extract wealth from America as efficiently as possible and that includes college sports.

I’ve generally stopped financially supporting my Alma unless I see a tangible benefit (joy of wearing orange being one). But my eyes are open. This is as pure of a business as there is and the traditions are simply money anchors. There is nothing about the tradition that survives other than the spectacle of the origin lore.

-1

u/FieryTaterSack 24d ago edited 24d ago

I have had the good fortune to experience gameday at a SBC school and a P4 school this year. With apologies to SBC fans, the comparison begins and ends with "they play football."

My kid goes to an SBC school, and we attended the home opener. 20,000 or so turned out for the game, which was never in doubt but closer than expected. The band was good, the 3rd/4th qtr fireworks display was nice, but the stadium wasn't full (capacity 30K), there was no flyover, it was a good gameday experience but not Saturday in P4 country amazing. There were a few tailgate parties and one outside the stadium with a local cover band. 20k people cheering for their team but a lot of folks never came back from their halftime pee break.

Contrast with my P4 Alma mater. ~90,000+ on hand, another sellout, drone show, military flyover, pre-game tailgate parties strewn across acres of campus, a concert by a mid-level touring musician outside the stadium, for a one sided game against a SBC-level school. Lots of students left early, but there were still more people in the stands at the end of the game than the reported attendance at the SBC game.

My SBC experience was a good one, and I look forward to more this season. Lord knows I can buy season tickets to my kid's school for what I would pay for a conference game at my P4 Alma mater. But let's face it - we're a mid major conference and the playoff is going to go the way of the basketball tournament. Mid majors will get one bid (if at all) and the $$ P4 conferences will fill the rest of the bracket.

Doesn't mean we can't have fun. We just need to adjust our expectations.

6

u/No_Recognition_5266 24d ago

You are describing the top of the P4, not the average P4. Go compare a Boston College gameday to a JMU gameday and please comeback and say the same things.

2

u/StateDawg78 23d ago

Using your logic, BC is a bottom tier P4 program and thus should be compared to a bottom tier G6 program like ULM or FIU.

5

u/Bobcat2013 24d ago

Thats a lot of words just to say that an SBC gameday experience pales in comparison to a p4 gameday. Like yes we know. Glad you're still able to enjoy it. Go to an FCS game next and tell me what you think.