South Alabama is featured in the Sun Belt Conference’s 2011 football media guide, which notes that the Jaguars will play a full Sun Belt schedule in 2012 and will become eligible for postseason play in 2013.
South Alabama’s Transition
The Sun Belt currently has nine schools that play football. South Alabama is set to become the 10th when it becomes a full football member of the conference in 2013.
The conference has 12 member institutions after New Orleans voted to move to a lower division. That number is set to fall to 11 once Denver completes its pending move to another conference.
A Conference History
The 180-page media guide includes an extensive history of the Sun Belt, which was founded in 1976 with six schools competing in four sports. The guide traces the conference’s early success, including a team in the Final Four, and its role in introducing the shot clock to college basketball. It also details the timeline of schools joining the league and covers the conference’s championship teams from last season.
The football section begins in 2001, the first season in which the Sun Belt sponsored the sport.
Preseason Poll
Florida International was picked to win the conference in the annual Sun Belt coaches’ preseason poll, with Troy selected second. Troy has won or shared the Sun Belt title in each of the last six seasons and has been picked first or second in the preseason for several years.
Waters: ‘Not in Survival Mode’
Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters said the league’s reputation has grown over the last few years.
“We are not in survival mode like we were seven, eight years ago,” Waters said. He described the conference as being in enhancement mode and added, “Sun Belt football is here and not going away.”
At last year’s media days, Waters pointed to Boise State, TCU, Hawaii and Utah as programs that had earned their way into BCS bowl games and challenged Sun Belt teams to aim for the same goal. “If Hawaii and Boise and Utah and TCU can accomplish that, in my mind I don’t know of any reason why our schools can’t do it also,” he said at the time.
BCS Access
The Sun Belt is one of the five Football Bowl Subdivision conferences without an automatic bid to a BCS bowl. Under BCS rules, the Sun Belt champion earns an automatic BCS berth if it finishes in the top 12 of the final BCS standings, or if it finishes in the top 16 and is ranked higher than the champion of a conference that holds an automatic berth.
