Search the Community

Sun Belt Conference commissioner Karl Benson wants the league's football programs to work on shedding their "addiction" to big-money, non-conference matchups with heavily favored, Power Five programs. More non-league games with "peer conferences" would improve the chances of a Sun Belt team going unbeaten and getting a bid to one of six prestigious New Year's Day bowl games, the commissioner said at the conference's media day Monday. "As nice as it is and as great as it is to win a game against one of the 'Big Five' — I don't want to minimize that — but right now, in the system that we have, competition with our peer conferences is so important," Benson said. "Those are the games that we really need to focus on." This season, the combined schedules of the Sun Belt's 11 teams include 35 non-conference games against the other nine conferences classified in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. Of those, 19 are against so-called "Power Five" teams in the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Pac 12 and Big 12. The other 16 are against teams from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the American Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Conference. "The Sun Belt's goal is to be the best conference of our four peer conferences," Benson said. But giving up big-money games will be harder for some Sun Belt institutions than others, apparently. read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article27912436.html Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article27912436.html#storylink=cpy