Sun Belt Sports Fans

Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. So is a college football season. This truth is particularly apparent when one considers the backdrop to this Saturday’s Sun Belt battle between the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.

When coach Todd Berry’s ULM lineup tests its talents against coach Rick Stockstill’s MTSU crew, it’s going to be a bit of a mind trip at Floyd Stadium in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. At least for the time being, ULM – and not Middle Tennessee – is a closer pursuer of the conference-leading Troy Trojans. Both teams really need this game, of course, but again, the Warhawks are the ones that enter this encounter with the fate of the Sun Belt race in their hands. The reality is as clear as it is improbable; that doesn’t change the reality itself – it exists, and everyone else in the Belt just has to come to terms with it… at least for the moment.

There’s no sense in trying to deny it, and there’s also no point in trying to get overly worked up about it: At least for week eight of the college football campaign, Louisiana-Monroe controls its path through the Sun Belt. At 2-1, the Warhawks are third in the league behind the leaders from Troy and the 2-0 Golden Panthers of Florida International. If ULM digs out a win in Tennessee against the Blue Raiders, the men of Monroe would then play Troy on Oct. 30 (in week nine) for a share of the Sun Belt lead. That game against Troy is followed by a Nov. 6 visit to Miami to take on Florida International. The point is plain, even if it seems a little nutty to contemplate: If Louisiana-Monroe wins its next three games, it will not only claim first place in the Sun Belt, but own head-to-head tiebreakers over the top two teams in the league at the moment (Troy and FIU) plus the team picked to win the Belt in the offseason (Middle Tennessee).

If anyone is uncomfortable with this reality, though, such unsettledness isn’t called for. While ULM does control its fate, it’s very unlikely that Berry’s boys will be able to shoot to the top of the conference.

For one thing, Middle Tennessee will be rarin’ to go this Saturday. Quarterback Dwight Dasher, who has struggled in his first two games as MTSU’s quarterback following his September-long suspension, should finally be comfortable as a signal caller. A decisive loss at Georgia Tech, a team that’s a few notches above MTSU’s weight class, should give Dasher plenty of film-study material for this week, and it should also make the game flow more easily against Monroe.

The other thing to realize about ULM is that its 2-1 Sun Belt record is based on wins over the two teams that sit at the bottom of the league standings. The Warhawks had to come from behind against both Florida Atlantic and a still-winless team from Western Kentucky to win those two games as well. Against Western Kentucky, in fact, ULM needed a 28-point fourth quarter to avoid becoming WKU’s first victim since 2008.

Yes, Louisiana-Monroe will be in position to win the Sun Belt if it can prevail in each of the next three weeks. However, it’s going to be very hard for the Warhawks to get there. Middle Tennessee gets first dibs in the attempt to restore some order in this wacky conference.

Matt Zemek