Player of the Year: Carson Roccaforte, 1B, Louisiana: With a smooth lefthanded swing, Roccaforte has only gotten better offensively in his two years with the Rajun’ Cajuns. While Southern Miss slots in as the favorite, the likes of Georgia Southern, Coastal Carolina and Louisiana are not to be undervalued. The Sun Belt now numbers 14 teams, five coming off of NCAA berths, and figures to be especially competitive with nine teams that cleared the 30-win mark last season. At the same time, Arkansas-Little Rock left for the Ohio Valley Conference and Texas-Arlington moved to the Western Athletic Conference. 11 national seed and fell to eventual national champion Mississippi in the super regionals, while Marshall and Old Dominion also join from Conference USA and James Madison moves over from the Colonial Athletic Association. The biggest addition is undoubtedly Southern Miss, which last year was the No. That set the stage for four additions-and two departures-to a conference that finished No. While all four bowed out in regionals, each registered at least one win while Texas State and Coastal Carolina pushed top-eight seeds Stanford and East Carolina to the brink in regional finals. 16 national seed Georgia Southern alongside Texas State, Coastal Carolina and Louisiana-Lafayette. It sent four teams to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013, including No. The Sun Belt is one of the few G5 conferences that can say that.Ĭory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers and Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network.For a conference that underwent quite a bit of change in the offseason, 2022 was a terrific season for the Sun Belt.
One of the reasons why we’ve worked so hard for CFP expansion, we really do think opening that up just a little bit would give us room to get there,” he said. However that arrives - if it does - Gill believes the Sun Belt is in position to to earn spots in a 12-team or bigger field. With the talk of super conferences in the near future for college football, playoff expansion would surely follow suit. That was a good thing because it got us positioned for what could come next.” “We’re well-positioned for this next round of realignment that’s going to result from the USC-UCLA ripple effect. But it’s a matter of, is there an opportunity for us to grow in ways that make sense?” Gill said. “I think for us, it’s really about, 'Is there an opportunity there?' We feel really stable, really good with our 14 teams. For the Sun Belt, how well it emerged from the last round of major moves gives it flexibility. With the conference now sitting at 14 members, Gill said there’s no number he has in mind for possible further expansion. The Sun Belt was the only Group of Five league that didn’t lose any football members from 2021. No conference has been safe from some form of movement over the past calendar year. “It’s going to be a good springboard for us, the future is going to be bright for us.
“We take pride that we’re so attractive that our 10 schools wanted to say and help us build this conference into what it is today. “We take pride in that fact that we were so attractive for four great schools wanted to join us,” Gill told The Daily Advertiser in a one-on-one interview Wednesday. The healthier-than-ever conference has placed itself among the top seven conferences in college football, finding a seat at the table as realignment continues. Media Days marked the first step into the spotlight for the league after Gill and the universities’ athletic directors and presidents were proactive from the news of Texas and Oklahoma inquiring last summer about joining the SEC. Keith Gill, commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference, announces that Southern Miss will join the Sun Belt Conference at the Southern Miss Trent Lott Center in Hattiesburg, Miss.
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