EUGENE, Ore. – As the sun rises over Eugene, Ore., on Saturday, Dec. 20, the stage is set for the culminating moment of a 25-year rise of Sun Belt football, when No. 12-seeded James Madison steps onto the field at Autzen Stadium to take on No. 5-seeded Oregon in the College Football Playoff First Round. 
 
The youngest Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) conference, having begun sponsoring football in 2001, the Sun Belt has built a nationally-noted brand over the past decade, ascending to its perch as the premier non-autonomy conference in the country. 

The brainchild of Wright Waters—the Sun Belt’s fourth commissioner, who presided over the league from 1999-2012—Sun Belt football faced headwinds in its early days. Over its first 14 seasons, the league produced just three 10-win teams and 25 Bowl Season participants. 
 
During the mid-2010s round of conference realignment, the Sun Belt strategically sought and successfully courted like-minded institutions with passionate fanbases and winning football traditions, adding Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) powers App State and Georgia Southern in 2014 and Coastal Carolina in 2016. 
 
The Mountaineers had appeared in the FCS playoffs on 20 occasions—a mark that still ranks fourth all-time among FCS programs—including winning three-consecutive national championships in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The Eagles had appeared in the FCS playoffs 19 times—sixth all-time among FCS programs—with six national championships in 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1999 and 2000. The Chanticleers had earned six playoff berths in 14 FCS seasons, with back-to-back quarterfinal appearances in 2013 and 2014. 
 
Since 2014, the Sun Belt has been home to 22 10-win teams—including at least one 10-win program in every season and multiple 10-win teams in each of the past eight years. Over the 12-year span, the Sun Belt has nearly tripled its 2001-2013 Bowl Season output with 73 Bowl Season participants. 
 
Those Bowl Season participants have won at a non-autonomy conference-leading clip, with the Sun Belt’s .571 bowl winning percentage during the College Football Playoff era trailing only the SEC (.578). 
 
Amidst a run of four-straight Sun Belt football titles from 2016-2019—including hosting and winning the first two Sun Belt Football Championship Games in 2018 & 2019—App State earned the conference’s first-ever College Football Playoff ranking (No. 25 on Nov. 12, 2019) and Selection Day ranking (No. 20 on Dec. 8, 2019). The Mountaineers would go on to post the Sun Belt’s first-ever 13-1 season in 2019 with a win over UAB in the New Orleans Bowl—part of a string of six-straight bowl appearances and bowl championships in its first six postseason-eligible seasons at the FBS level. 
 
On the first full Saturday of the COVID-19-delayed 2020 college football season, the Sun Belt captured the eyeballs and hearts of the nation with three victories over Big 12 opposition, as Louisiana defeated No. 23 Iowa State, 31-14; Coastal Carolina outpaced Kansas, 38-23; and Arkansas State downed Kansas State, 35-31. 
 
“You can’t underestimate a Sun Belt Conference team anymore,” said then-Louisiana head coach—and incoming James Madison head coach—Billy Napier following the victories. “It’s become a normal thing. You put a Sun Belt team on your schedule, you better watch out.”
 
Coastal Carolina and Louisiana would go on to earn their first-ever College Football Playoff rankings during the 2020 season, with the Chanticleers eventually being ranked No. 12—the Sun Belt’s highest-ever ranking—and the Ragin’ Cajuns being ranked No. 19 on Selection Day (Dec. 20, 2020). Those rankings came after Coastal Carolina became the first Sun Belt institution to host ESPN’s College GameDay on Dec. 5, 2020, ahead of a 22-17 win over No. 8 BYU in a showdown of Top 15-ranked unbeaten teams scheduled on short notice. A highly-anticipated nationally-ranked matchup between No. 12 Coastal Carolina and No. 19 Louisiana in the 2020 Sun Belt Football Championship Game was cancelled due to COVID-19 contact tracing. 
 
The Napier-led Ragin’ Cajuns continued their string of four-straight Sun Belt West Division titles and championship game berths in 2021, breaking through for their first-ever outright Sun Belt crown and earning a second-straight College Football Playoff Selection Day mention (No. 23 on Dec. 5, 2021) en route to the second-ever 13-1 finish by a Sun Belt team. 
 
Building on its national relevance during the mid-2020s round of conference realignment, the Sun Belt firmly established its identity as a football-driven league with a regional footprint and a divisional model, growing to 14 football-playing members for the first time in its history with the additions of Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss from Conference USA and FCS power James Madison ahead of the 2022 season. 
 
The Dukes had appeared in the FCS playoffs on 18 occasions—ninth all-time among FCS programs—with two national championships in 2004 and 2016. 
 
“Now, this year, the best non-autonomy FBS conference just got better,” said Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill following the additions. And right he was. 
 
Since expanding to 14 football-playing members in 2022, the Sun Belt has earned 12 victories over autonomy conference opposition—including three on its Statement Saturday on Sept. 10, 2022, when Marshall knocked off No. 8 Notre Dame, 26-21; App State bested No. 6 Texas A&M, 17-14; and Georgia Southern outpaced Nebraska, 45-42. With the wins, the Sun Belt became the first non-autonomy conference to knock off multiple Top 10-ranked opponents on the same day in nearly two decades (Sept. 20, 2003).  
 
Over the past four years, the Sun Belt has also posted conference records for victories over autonomy conference opposition (4 in 2022 & 2023), Senior Bowl selections (8 in 2022), NFL Combine invitations (12 in 2022), NFL Draft picks (9 in 2022) and Bowl Season participants (12 in 2023). 
 
The league has hosted ESPN’s College GameDay prior to conference matchups on two occasions at App State in Boone, N.C. on Sept. 17, 2022, and at James Madison on Nov. 18, 2023, drawing a GameDay-record crowd of 26,000. The Sun Belt has also led all non-autonomy conferences in Bowl Season representation in each of the past four seasons, producing seven Bowl Season qualifiers in 2022, a national-best 12 in 2023, eight in 2024 and 10 in 2025.  
 
Since joining the conference, James Madison has been on a similar upward trajectory. The Dukes have gone 40-10 over their first four FBS seasons, with their .800 winning percentage since 2022 trailing only perennial powers Georgia (.911), Ohio State (.873), Oregon (.868) and Michigan (.833). 
 
This year, the Dukes competed in, hosted and won their first Sun Belt Football Championship Game, becoming the seventh team all-time to post an unbeaten Sun Belt regular-season and the second to do so and also win the Sun Belt Football Championship Game (Louisiana, 2021). James Madison is 1-of-2 teams in the country to go undefeated against conference opposition this season, alongside No. 1 Indiana. 
 
“It takes a full year to put a trophy in a trophy case. You don’t put that trophy in a trophy case just here tonight,” said James Madison head coach Bob Chesney following his team’s 31-14 victory over Troy in the Sun Belt Football Championship Game that helped secure its berth into the College Football Playoff as one of the five highest-rated conference champions. 
 
The sixth Sun Belt team to be listed in the College Football Playoff Selection Day Rankings over the past seven seasons, the Dukes were the first to break into the College Football Playoff field. James Madison will be just the 26th program to appear in the College Football Playoff and the fourth to hail from a non-autonomy conference when it takes the field on Saturday. It will carry an 11-game active winning streak into the matchup—the second-longest in the country behind only No. 1 Indiana (13). During that streak, the Dukes are outscoring opponents 426-168 and have conceded just 34 second-half and 16 fourth-quarter points. With a scoring offense (37.3 points per game) and scoring defense (15.8) that each rank No. 10 in the country, James Madison has the balance that could make it the first non-autonomy team to earn a victory in the College Football Playoff. To do so, the 12-1 Dukes will have to get through an 11-1 Oregon side whose lone loss came to a Curt Cignetti-led No. 1 Indiana squad. 
 
Stranger things have happened. As Cignetti—the former James Madison and current Indiana head coach—espoused while leading the Dukes, “the competitive difference between a lot of autonomy conference teams and the very competitive non-autonomy teams isn’t as much as maybe the average fan might think it is.”
 
“We know what got us to this moment and that’s what we have to continue to do. We won’t need to change anything that we do,” said Chesney heading into the Dukes College Football Playoff debut. “This isn’t necessarily special, this is important. Just like every game that we go into, none are ultimately more special than the other. They’re important. Your preparation will lead you to that moment when you walk on that field and you have no regrets because you prepared the way that you’re supposed to prepare. Then you just go out there and fire every bullet you got and make sure that you’re fully locked in and excited for the opportunity.” 
 
Today is a day of opportunity—for James Madison and the Sun Belt—but regardless of the outcome, the sun will rise on Sunday, Dec. 21, with the Sun Belt having reached new heights in its 25th anniversary season. 
 
The Sun Belt Conference is rising, our best days are ahead, and we’re just getting started.