Has there been any official confirmation of whom we WILL NOT play next year?

Nothing official. Educated guess is Ark St. and USA.

GA St., Idaho, ULM, Texas St - HOME
GS, ULL, NMSU, Troy - ROAD

Saint3333 wrote:Nothing official. Educated guess is Ark St. and USA.

GA St., Idaho, ULM, Texas St - HOME
GS, ULL, NMSU, Troy - ROAD

That. Sets up for a Sun Belt title run

Also, I believe that GS finally gets ULL and Ark St

Seems the sunbelt would want to build rivalries for the hope to be division days. Skipping USA may happen, but why not start saving travel cost now.

I figured we would drop Idaho since we are picking up NMSU - Texas St and NMSU should not be as strong as Ark St and USA ---

Is Coastal thrown into the mix next season?

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:Is Coastal thrown into the mix next season?

They'll join the Belt for all sports except football in 2016. Their football program will join the Belt in the fall of 17.

When will the conference schedule come out?

Looks like it was announced on Feb 27th of this year. That's too long to wait.

http://www.fbschedules.com/2015/02/2015 ... announced/

WVAPPeer wrote:I figured we would drop Idaho since we are picking up NMSU - Texas St and NMSU should not be as strong as Ark St and USA ---

We'll only play both for one year as CCU comes on in 2017 we'll likely play 5 eastern teams (GS, GA St, CCU, Troy, USA) and three western teams, hopefully with one permanent partner which I'd like to be Ark St.

If the Sun Belt drops Idaho and or NM State is could affect scheduling.

Wonder why the schedule takes so long to finalize when this is a predictable, yearly task for a conference?

Looking on fbschedules.com, all P5 conferences have their full schedules except ACC which does have the conference home and away games for each team but no dates. Among the G5, AAC has the full schedule completed, Mountain West has the home and away conference games for each team, and Conference USA, MAC and Sunbelt have no conference games listed.

I wonder if schools are still lobbying for the schedules they want and if that would be taken into consideration at this point. I guess once the Sunbelt has division, we will know who we are playing each year and presumably would alternate between home and away.

tjpappy wrote: I wonder if schools are still lobbying for the schedules they want and if that would be taken into consideration at this point.

I will take the answer you provided. Maybe they are trying to corral APP into another two Thursday night games on ESPNU to compete against CUSA on ESPN2 in same time slot. Personally, I hope for zero Thursday night games in 2016, or at most one with a bye week preceding it.

CVAPP wrote:

tjpappy wrote: I wonder if schools are still lobbying for the schedules they want and if that would be taken into consideration at this point.

I will take the answer you provided. Maybe they are trying to corral APP into another two Thursday night games on ESPNU to compete against CUSA on ESPN2 in same time slot. Personally, I hope for zero Thursday night games in 2016, or at most one with a bye week preceding it.

TV games aren't established until later. That shouldn't impact setting up the conference schedule.

tjpappy wrote:Wonder why the schedule takes so long to finalize when this is a predictable, yearly task for a conference?

Looking on fbschedules.com, all P5 conferences have their full schedules except ACC which does have the conference home and away games for each team but no dates. Among the G5, AAC has the full schedule completed, Mountain West has the home and away conference games for each team, and Conference USA, MAC and Sunbelt have no conference games listed.

I wonder if schools are still lobbying for the schedules they want and if that would be taken into consideration at this point. I guess once the Sunbelt has division, we will know who we are playing each year and presumably would alternate between home and away.

It takes a while for the PTB's to figure how to give Ga Sou the absolute easiest conference schedule. Lots of computer time and scenarios to test....

hapapp wrote:

CVAPP wrote:

tjpappy wrote: I wonder if schools are still lobbying for the schedules they want and if that would be taken into consideration at this point.

I will take the answer you provided. Maybe they are trying to corral APP into another two Thursday night games on ESPNU to compete against CUSA on ESPN2 in same time slot. Personally, I hope for zero Thursday night games in 2016, or at most one with a bye week preceding it.

TV games aren't established until later. That shouldn't impact setting up the conference schedule.

Actually the Tuesday games are decided first and do impact the conference schedule as both teams don't play the Saturdays surrounding those games.

My guess is App @ GS and Ark St. vs. ULL will be the two Tuesday games.

So the Sun Belt is moving to Tuesday games for 2016?

The SBC is contracted for 2 ESPN2 games on Tuesdays and 5 ESPNU games on Thursdays through the 2019 football season.

There will be 14 teams that play mid-week games next year and I'd bet we get a minimum of two of them, possibly three; @ GS, GA St., and @ ULL.

Thanks for the clarification.

Saint3333 wrote:The SBC is contracted for 2 ESPN2 games on Tuesdays and 5 ESPNU games on Thursdays through the 2019 football season.

There will be 14 teams that play mid-week games next year and I'd bet we get a minimum of two of them, possibly three; @ GS, GA St., and @ ULL.

In your opinion, how would the SB decide? - would it be about match-ups? about getting the best teams on TV? or would they look to "spread the wealth?"