The talk of the Sun Belt Conference coaches teleconference this morning was Louisiana-Monroe’s win over Arkansas.
Big shock.
Just about every coach in the league was asked how big it was, and they all said it was huge.
Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson mentioned that it was important for the league’s profile and went on to say that he was disappointed that ULM didn’t receive more votes in the Top 25 polls. ULM received 23 votes in the AP poll and one in the coaches’ poll.
Media members are more likely to vote for a team that pulls an upset.
Todd Berry, ULM’s head coach, talked about how important the win was for the program and how big it is for the Warhawks to follow up on it. If ULM is ever going to get to a bowl, this would seem to be the year. The Warhawks have a good quarterback in Kolton Browning and an experienced defense. Plus ULM has a win on the board with the entire Sun Belt schedule left, not to mention a game against Tulane.
The Sun Belt isn’t exactly the SEC. There are some games in league play that ULM should win.
In a side note, I’m setting the over-under at 13 on the number of UNT fans who will jump off a very tall building if ULM goes to a bowl game this year and UNT sees its string of consecutive losing seasons reach eight.
And speaking of UNT, the one tidbit to come out of the call on the Mean Green front is the Brandon McCoy is still day-to-day with an injury that forced him to miss UNT’s win over Texas Southern.
It’s an interesting dilemma.
Does UNT bring McCoy back this week against a ranked Kansas State team that is going to be a huge favorite over the Mean Green or wait until the fourth week of the season when Troy comes to town? I have said all along that the Troy game is when things will start to get interesting for UNT.
I said at the beginning of the year that it would be a huge shock if UNT isn’t 1-2 heading into that game. We are one game away from that prediction coming to fruition.
UNT could really use a healthy McCoy when things start to get interesting.