4 Teams In The Running To Win The Sun Belt

The Sun Belt Conference did not get to play its championship game last year due to the pandemic. A COVID-19 issue with one of the two teams involved canceled the game. Coastal Carolina and Louisiana-Lafayette were both recognized as Sun Belt champions, though Coastal Carolina won the regular-season meeting between the two teams. Now we will see if Coastal Carolina and ULL can get to play in the Sun Belt Championship Game this time around, or if another team will get in the way of this matchup.

Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

The defending champions of the Sun Belt are in very good position to defend their title for one very simple reason: They have the best quarterback in the conference. Grayson McCall took the Sun Belt by storm in 2020, his freshman season. He made a ton of big plays and very few mistakes. He took care of the ball and yet was dynamic as both a runner and passer… and now he has one more year of experience under his belt. Coastal Carolina’s offense was balanced yet explosive. It was unpredictable and yet relatively disciplined because of the command McCall exhibited as a field general. As long as McCall remains healthy, Coastal Carolina is the team to beat in the Sun Belt. The fact that CCU beat Brigham Young in a highly-publicized and very ferocious nonconference game late last season showed that the Chanticleers could compete with good teams across the nation. They are a resourceful team which won close games last year but showed that they have a lot of upside. It is really hard to bet against CCU at this point, even though the opposition at the top tier of the Sun Belt is formidable.

Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns

The Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns played a close game against Coastal Carolina last season, losing narrowly. They had earned a rematch in the conference championship game, but as noted above, that rematch was canceled due to COVID-19. ULL definitely wants to strike back at Coastal Carolina this year. Coach Billy Napier has a team which has qualified for each of the past three Sun Belt Championship Games. ULL is a consistent team, but it hasn’t yet won the biggest and most important game of its season.

Last year’s ULL team scored 370 points and allowed just 242, scoring over 33 points per game and allowing just 22, en route to a 10-1 record. Most of the starters are back on this year’s team, so the Cajuns have every expectation of being there to oppose Coastal Carolina in the conference title game.

Appalachian State Mountaineers

App State was a solid team last year, but at 9-3, the Mountaineers were a notch below 11-1 CCU and 10-1 ULL. Appalachian State was led to prominence by previous coach Scott Satterfield, and in 2019, Satterfield’s successor, Eli Drinkwitz, won the Sun Belt championship. ASU beat ULL in the 2018 and 2019 conference title games, and it was reasonable to wonder if someone would knock App State off its perch. Coastal Carolina became that team in 2020, so the challenge now becomes profound for the Mountaineers in 2020: Can their defense rattle Grayson McCall and contain the Coastal Carolina offense?

Georgia Southern Eagles

The Eagles are not as credentialed as the top three teams in the Sun Belt, but they will give it a run in 2021. Georgia Southern lost multiple close games last season and hopes that it can do better in tight-margin situations this year. Last season’s team was consistently competitive, so there’s reason to believe that the Eagles can take the next step this fall.