2018 Sun Belt Football News and Notes:
Championship Game Release (PDF) | Standings | Composite Schedule | Stats | Championship Info
Appalachian State Hosts Sun Belt Championship Against Louisiana
The inaugural Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game is headed to Boone, N.C., as Appalachian State won its piece of the Sun Belt East Division and claimed the right to host West Division representative Louisiana.
Kickoff for the first Sun Belt Football Championship Game will come straight out of College GameDay on ESPN at 12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT on Saturday, Dec. 1. App State’s Kidd Brewer Stadium will serve as the championship venue when the Mountaineers (9-2, 7-1 Sun Belt) host the Ragin’ Cajuns (7-5, 5-3 Sun Belt). The winner will play in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl and the runner-up will play in the AutoNation Cure Bowl - both games are scheduled for Dec. 15.
The two coaches in the Sun Belt Conference’s first-ever football championship game both look on Saturday’s game as a seminal moment in the league’s history.
Both Appalachian State’s Scott Satterfield and Louisiana’s Billy Napier are glad their teams are the ones to participate, especially since both had to win pressure-packed games in last Saturday’s regular-season finales to reach the inaugural title game.
“We’re excited to be a part of a historical day,” said Napier. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for our team. We’ve been in playoff mode for several weeks now, and really tried to focus on improvement and trying to get ourselves in this position.”
Satterfield said that hosting the first-ever title game at Kidd Brewer Stadium makes it especially significant to the Appalachian State program.
“We’re a program where we like to do a lot of firsts, and we’ve been able to do that the last four years,” he said. “When you look at making the transition (from the FCS ranks) and going to our first bowl game, and then two years ago winning the conference, and now the first year that you’re able to have an outright champion we’re able to host the game. That’s a credit to our players and our staff to have the kind of season we’ve had this year.”
Saturday’s game is the culmination of the first season that the Sun Belt divided into two five-team divisions in football, a move that created excitement and intrigue up until the final weekend of the regular season – one in which five different teams could have claimed a spot in the championship game.
“I want to give a lot of credit to Karl Benson, our commissioner, on how he stabilized the league and really established credibility,” said Napier, one of only seven coaches nationally making his head-coaching debut on the FBS level. “Certainly the divisional format and the Championship Game have proved to be a huge positive for the league, and we’re excited about representing the West Division.”
UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Saturday, December 1
Louisiana at Appalachian State
12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT
TV: ESPN
Play-by-Play: Jason Benetti
Analyst: Kelly Stouffer
Reporter: Olivia Dekker
Louisiana Radio
Flagship: ESPN 1420 AM - Lafayette
Play-by-Play: Jay Walker
Analyst: Chris Lanaux
Reporter: Cody Junot
Appalachian State Radio
Flagship: 97.3 FM - North Wilkesboro
Play-by-Play: Adam Witten
Analyst: Simms McElfresh
Reporter: Molly Cotten
Appalachian State Radio Simulcast
Sirius 119, XM 202, Online 982
AROUND #SUNBELTFB
Rematch
Appalachian State and Louisiana played during the regular season, with the Mountaineers taking a home-field 27-17 win over the Cajuns on Oct. 20.
“Certainly there’s some familiarity there,” Napier said. “It’s a lot like playing in the NFL where you have a divisional team that you play twice a year. We hoped we were going to get the chance to play them again. It’s going to be common in this league for the Championship Game to be a rematch.”
“We played six weeks ago,” Satterfield said. “Any two teams, after six weeks, you change a little bit. People get dinged here and there a little bit with injuries. When we played them it was the middle of the season and they’ve kind of settled in on who they are as a football team, and we have too. You kind of grow as a team, but you are what you are at this point in time.”
Series Record
Series Record: App State leads 5-0
At Kidd Brewer Stadium: App State leads 3-0
Series History
Oct. 20, 2018 - App State 27, Louisiana 17
Dec. 02, 2017 - App State 63, Louisiana 14
Oct. 12, 2016 - App State 24, Louisiana 0
Nov. 28, 2015 - App State 28, Louisiana 7
Nov. 22, 2014 - App State 35, Louisiana 16
Average Score: App State 35.4, Louisiana 10.8
They have history
This season marked the first time that Satterfield and Napier faced off as head coaches, but it isn’t the first time they’ve been on opposite sidelines.
That connection goes back to the Southern Conference, when the Mountaineers faced off with a Furman team quarterbacked by Napier.
“I was coaching here at App when he was playing,” said Satterfield, who was an assistant at his alma mater at the time. “He was a really good player for them at Furman.”
Napier was good enough to be a finalist for the Walter Payton Award, symbolic of the nation’s most outstanding offensive player in the FCS ranks. A four-year letterman, Napier was a two-time All-Southern Conference selection and led the Paladins to two conference championships and to the 2001 Division I-AA national championship game during his junior season.
He was also team captain his senior year when he threw for a school-record 2,475 yards, but his Furman team lost to App State 16-15 that year. Overall, Napier was 2-2 against the Mountaineers in his playing career.
“A lot of good days and a lot of bad days, I’d say,” Napier said of playing against the Mountaineers. “Back then in the Southern Conference it was Furman, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern as the teams that were in contention each year. It always was very competitive with those three. That’s what I kind of like about being in this league now, you get a chance to play against some of those teams that I played against as a player. A lot of fun, man, that’s what I would say.”
Ironically, Satterfield was also a quarterback during his playing days with the Mountaineers, and in his senior year App State went 12-1 in 1995 and was unbeaten until a loss in the second round of the I-AA playoffs. He began coaching full-time at his alma mater three years later.
“We hadn’t crossed paths really in the coaching profession, but obviously I knew who he was because of his days at Furman,” Satterfield said. “I’ve met him over the last year since he’s been in this conference, and he’s done a great job with that program, kind of turning it around over the last year. They’re sitting here playing in the conference championship game so obviously he and his staff have done a great job.”
Napier said not much has changed in the Mountaineer program from his perspective.
“They’ve always been a very competitive team, even going back to my time as a player,” he said. “They’ve always been a team that had an identity. Winning tradition is often times undervalued in my opinion, no matter what level of ball, and I think that’s where Coach Satterfield has tremendous value. For his number of years as a player and assistant coach there, going back to his experiences, it means a little more. They’ve got a number of former players involved on their staff. Tradition is critical when you start talking about sustaining success.”
New Weapons
When Appalachian State was sharing last year’s Sun Belt Conference title, quarterback Zac Thomas and wide receiver Corey Sutton were a part of that success in name only.
Thomas was an understudy to four-year Mountaineer starter Taylor Lamb, seeing only limited action, and Sutton was sitting out after transferring from Kansas State.
This year, despite missing most of two games with an injury, Thomas has led the App State offense to a league-leading 37.3 points per game, throwing for 1,787 yards and 18 scores while completing 63.6 percent of his passes and rushing for eight more touchdowns and a 5.6 per-carry average.
Sutton, meanwhile, has eight touchdowns among his 34 catches for 672 yards.
“Last year when Taylor was the starting quarterback, I think Zac knew he had an opportunity to be the guy this year,” Satterfield said. “So he worked hard. He stayed after practice. Corey would as well. They just worked together. The bottom line is Corey’s a hard worker and he’s made himself into a really good player.
“Zac has come a long way over the last two years with his accuracy and arm strength, and you add that with his running ability and it just puts a lot of pressure on defenses. He’s done a good job of getting Corey the ball and Corey’s made the most of it with the eight touchdowns.”
“They’re definitely a different team with him there,” Napier said of Thomas. “Since he’s been back they’ve been lighting it up pretty good. He’s proved to be an effective passer and we all know what type of athlete he is. They have the ability to use all their weapons when he’s in there.”
Terrific Trio
Before Louisiana running back Raymond Calais missed most of the regular-season finale against ULM with illness, the Ragin’ Cajuns were one of only two teams in the country with three running backs ranked in the top 100 nationally in rushing yards.
They still have some impressive numbers, with sophomores Trey Ragas (1,040 yards) and Elijah Mitchell (874 yards) ranking second and fifth in the Sun Belt and 34th and 72nd nationally in rushing. Calais is 10th in the league (711 yards) along with an impressive 9.4 yards per carry, while Mitchell leads the league among those with enough carries with a 7.1 per-carry average.
“Those three running backs are probably all all-conference caliber,” Satterfield said.
The Cajuns are one of five teams in the country that has had two 100-yard rushers in three different games. Ragas tied Louisiana’s school record with his sixth 100-yard game last Saturday, equaling the mark done twice by Sun Belt all-time rushing leader Tyrell Fenroy.
Napier said it didn’t take long after his arrival in December to know that the running backs and the offensive line – which has had the same five starters in every game – would be the foundation of the offense.
“One of the strengths of our team is how we’ve done in short yardage situations,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons why we’re one of the better teams in the country on third down.”
Louisiana goes into the title game ranked ninth nationally in third-down conversions, converting 49.0 percent (75 of 153) for the season.
Championship Games
The Sun Belt Conference is the final of the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences to stage a football championship game. The Sun Belt is the first FBS conference to hold an inaugural football championship game since the American Athletic Conference conducted its first title game in 2015. The Sun Belt is the 12th NCAA Division I football-playing conference (FBS or Football Championship Subdivision) to stage a football championship game:
Southeastern – 1992 to present
Western Athletic – 1996-98
Big 12 – 1996-2010, 2017 to present
Mid-American – 1997 to present
Southwestern Athletic (FCS) – 1999 to present
Atlantic Coast – 2005 to present
Conference USA – 2005 to present
Big Ten – 2011 to present
Pac-12 – 2011 to present
Mountain West – 2013 to present
American Athletic – 2015 to present
Sun Belt Breaks Regular Season Non-Conference Win Total
After a win by Texas State in the Sun Belt’s final non-conference game of the 2018 regular season, the Sun Belt total for non-conference wins this season now sits at 21. That total is good for the most regular season non-conference wins in league history, breaking the record of 19 that was set in 2013. Including the postseason, the Sun Belt’s record for non-conference wins in a season is 22, which was set in 2016. The conference has a minimum total of five remaining non-conference games this season when factoring in postseason bowl opportunities.
Sun Belt Football Championship Game to Air Following College GameDay
Excitement for the inaugural Sun Belt Conference Football Championship game picked up more steam recently when ESPN and the Sun Belt announced that kickoff for the game will come straight out of College GameDay on ESPN at 12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT on Saturday, December 1. The Sun Belt Championship Game will feature the winners of the Sun Belt East (Appalachian State) and West Division (Louisiana). The game will take place at the home site of the Divisional Champion with the best overall conference winning percentage, which will be Appalachian Sate in Boone, N.C.
Sun Belt Champion Headed to R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
The winner of the inaugural Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game will be headed to New Orleans as the conference announced that the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl will host the winning team for its upcoming bowl game. The 2018 edition of the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl will kick off on Saturday, Dec. 15 at 8 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on ESPN. The Sun Belt Champion will face a team from Conference USA at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Sun Belt Runner-up to play in AutoNation Cure Bowl
The Sun Belt Conference announced that the runner-up team in Saturday’s inaugural Sun Belt Football Championship Game between Appalachian State and Louisiana will play in the 2018 AutoNation Cure Bowl. This year’s edition of the AutoNation Cure Bowl will take place on Dec. 15 at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. CT and the game will air on the CBS Sports Network.