By Dan McDonald, Special to the Sun Belt Conference
It’s the West Division’s turn for the game with the biggest impact on the Sun Belt Conference football race. In fact, the West might be decided even before the final week of the regular season.
If ULM can take a win over West rival Arkansas State on the road, and Louisiana falls in an upset to South Alabama in its home finale, the Warhawks will punch a ticket to the Sun Belt’s inaugural championship game Dec. 1.
“I felt like the last two weeks we’ve played as well as we have all year,” said ULM coach Matt Viator of the Warhawks’ 44-25 win over Georgia Southern and last Saturday’s 38-10 road victory over USA. “But we’ve really harped to our players that the more you win, that makes the next one that much more important. That’s kind of the way sports is. We got a lot of congratulations for beating South Alabama, but now look how important this week is.”
The Warhawks (6-4, 4-2 Sun Belt) travel to face the Red Wolves (6-4, 3-3 Sun Belt), themselves winners of two in a row over South Alabama and Coastal Carolina by a combined 52 points. A ULM win would eliminate the Red Wolves from West contention and set up a Nov. 24 battle for the West title with state rival Louisiana if the Ragin’ Cajuns beat USA Saturday. However, an A-State home victory could set up a three-way tie in the West with one weekend to go, and any of the three teams could win the West title on that final regular-season Saturday.
“We’ve told our guys if we do our job and find a way to win each week, the rest will take care of itself,” said Red Wolves coach Blake Anderson. “That doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed a shot, but you don’t want to wind up with a chance for something to happen and you’re not ready for it.”
What both teams are prepared for, but hoping to avoid, is the offensive explosion featured in last year’s meeting. A-State eventually prevailed 67-50 in Monroe in last year’s post-Thanksgiving game.
“It was a track meet last year and it could be the same this week,” Anderson said. “Both teams are pretty much finding their groove on offense right now, so we’re expecting a slugfest. Their skill people are as good as there are in the conference.”
“We are playing considerably better defense than we were last year,” Viator said, “but they (A-State) just put you in conflict with what they do. (Justice) Hansen gives you all kinds of problems, he’s the MVP of our league, and running the ball he’s really hurt us. We’ll have to minimize the big plays. Last year we gave up three, four, five home run shots. We have to make them earn it.”
Hansen enters Saturday’s 2 p.m. game in Jonesboro as the Sun Belt’s leader in passing (265.0 yards) and total offense (303.9). However, ULM quarterback Caleb Evans is right behind in second place in both categories (245.0 and 302.4) and hit 27 of 32 passes for 367 yards and ran for 54 more in tallying four touchdowns in the win at USA. He completed throws to 11 different receivers and led ULM to scores on six straight possessions, all on drives of 70 or more yards.
Hansen was even more efficient in an 18-of-20 passing day in a 44-16 road win at Coastal Carolina on Saturday, but Anderson said it could have been even better even though A-State had six touchdowns in a seven-drive stretch.
“We laughed that he should have been 20-for-20,” Anderson said. “He missed a checkdown on one, and he got confused on sides on another and had a guy wide open. We were giving him a hard time about it. He’s been hobbled with a knee injury but he’s played through it and he didn’t have to use his legs a lot last weekend. He’s throwing the ball with a lot of confidence and he should be even healthier this week.”
Keeping pace
Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns kept control of their own destiny in that West race in its 36-22 home win over Georgia State, a game in which the Cajuns went for a season-high 355 rush yards on only 38 carries. That number was helped by six rushing plays that garnered 225 yards, and third-team running back Raymond Calais’ 92-yard touchdown burst late in the first quarter.
Calais broke a 48-year-old Louisiana record with that burst and finished with 186 yards on 13 carries. The Cajuns (5-5, 3-3 Sun Belt) now have three of the league’s top nine rushers (Trey Ragas second at 87.2 yards per game, Elijah Mitchell sixth at 70.1 and Calais ninth at 63.7).
“That all starts with the offensive line,” said Louisiana first-year coach Billy Napier, “but we’re blessed with those backs. Those are all guys with the ability to make the big play. I was very impressed with the offensive personnel that we had when I got here, and I as excited about what I felt like we could do. We knew the offensive line and the running backs were the big strengths of this team.”
Ragas was slowed in Saturday’s win by a lower leg injury but Napier said he expects him to return for Saturday’s home finale, one that could set up a winner-take-all scenario for the final week depending on the outcome of the ULM-A-State game. But he also said that he didn’t expect his players to be looking ahead to the final week.
“It’s human nature to do that, but we’ve already talked about focusing on the next step,” he said. “It’s kind of like climbing a mountain, the further you go up the more treacherous it is and the terrain gets rougher. If you don’t focus, it could be a disaster, and we know South Alabama is a good team that can create a lot of issues for us.”
The Jaguars (2-8, 1-5 Sun Belt) are wrapping up a tough stretch of games that has seen them face Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Troy, Arkansas State and ULM in their last five conference games.
“It’s my first time through the league,” said first-year USA coach Steve Campbell, “and it’s good for our team to play against good football teams like these. I know where we are at some spots, but this gives you an idea of teams that are being successful and what they look like on the offensive line, the defensive line, what they look like at the skill positions, to kind of see where we need to get to.”
Also focusing
Troy remained the league’s only unbeaten team in Sun Belt play and remained in control of its destiny with a 35-21 win over Georgia Southern last Saturday in their pivotal East Division matchup. The Trojans (6-0, 8-2 Sun Belt) have won their last five league games by double-digit margins, and rallied back from an early 14-3 deficit Saturday to take its 12th consecutive conference win, the nation’s second longest active streak.
“I don’t think our kids blink in that situation,” said Trojan coach Neal Brown. “We only have 10 seniors on our roster so from an age standpoint we’re not an old football team, but we have a lot of experience and experience in big games. Our guys are already confident because they’ve had success. We got down 14-3 and they never blinked, never questioned what we were doing.”
The Trojans also have a chance at locking up the East Division this weekend if they can win at home over Texas State (3-7, 1-5 Sun Belt), coupled with an Appalachian State home loss to Georgia State. If the Mountaineers (7-2, 5-1 Sun Belt) win Saturday, regardless if Troy wins, it sets up a de facto championship game on Nov. 24 in Boone for the East title.
Brown said he hopes his team isn’t looking ahead to that possibility, and cites a lesson he hopes the Trojans learned in an unexpected 22-16 loss at Liberty in mid-October – Troy’s only defeat since a season-opening loss to Boise State.
“I can’t speak for that size group of 17 to 22-year-old males,” he said, “but I don’t think we’re good enough to overlook anybody. We lost to Liberty and didn’t play very well and they beat us. That proved to our football team that on any given day you can get beat.”
Texas State never recovered from quarterback Willie Jones III’s opening-drive departure with an injury, being outgained 468-218 by Appalachian State in Saturday’s 38-7 loss.
“We played with a backup (Tyler Vitt) even though he’s played a lot for us, and that took a little wind out of our sails,” said Bobcat coach Everett Withers.
Reunion of sorts
Appalachian State hosts Georgia State (2-8, 1-5 Sun Belt) Saturday in a reunion game for Mountaineer head coach Scott Satterfield and Panther coach Shawn Elliott. The two played together on the Mountaineer squad, and also coached together for a dozen years on the Appalachian State staff. Saturday will be Elliott’s first return to his alma mater as a head coach.
“Any time you spend as much time with an individual as I have with Scott, and some of the other guys on our staff, it’s special,” said Elliott. “I spent 18 years of my life up there. But it’s certainly not about me, it’s about our football team and I’m looking forward to going up there and competing.”
App State coach Scott Satterfield said he doesn’t relish the prospects for the weekend.
“It’s not fun to go against a friend like Shawn,” said Satterfield, whose team has allowed only 14 points in its last two games in wins over Coastal Carolina and Texas State. “He’s a good friend and a former teammate, and I don’t like going against guys like that. I don’t like playing my buds, to me it’s not fun. But if you’re in this business long enough your friends are going to become head coaches, and then you just try to go out and win.”
Bowl eligible
The wins by ULM and Arkansas State last weekend give the Sun Belt five bowl-eligible teams. Troy, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern (7-3, 4-2 Sun Belt) had previously taken a sixth win, and all five are still mathematically alive for a berth in the conference’s inaugural title game.
The league could add two more bowl-eligible teams if Louisiana and Coastal Carolina (both 5-5) win one of their final two games. The Sun Belt has only had seven bowl-eligible teams one other time in its history, that coming in 2013 (four of those teams finishing at 6-6).
At that time, though, the league only had two bowl tie-ins with the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl and the Dollar General Bowl (then the GoDaddy Bowl) in Mobile, Ala. The Sun Belt now has five bowl partners with teams headed for the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., the AutoNation Cure Bowl in Orlando and the NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl in Tucson, Ariz. The Sun Belt has had teams participate in 11 bowl games over the past two seasons.
Arkansas State has appeared in bowl games in each of the last seven seasons, and Red Wolves coach Blake Anderson said becoming bowl eligible in last week’s win at Coastal Carolina was still significant.
“That one was a big one for us,” he said. “There were a lot of good things and a lot of positives, but it continued a streak for us, eight years in a row.”