Sun Belt Conference Championship

[ntsumgspe]

Other than us winning out, what else has to happen or is it even a possibility ?

[Michael Scott]

Other than us winning out, what else has to happen or is it even a possibility ?

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God needs to have a sense of humor and/or we need to move to the Patriot League.

Git 'em next year!

[ntsumgspe]

Other than us winning out, what else has to happen or is it even a possibility ?

←

Found the answer to my own question ...

Another bowl game unlikely

Brad McDonnell

Sports Editor

November 09, 2005

Two conference losses are not enough to hold the Mean Green out of contention for one of the Sun Belt titles.

With parity surrounding the conference, only two teams are mathematically eliminated from a championship: newcomers Florida Atlantic and Florida International.

But finishing first may not be the top prize sought after and could fall a distant second to capturing the conference bowl bid.

The two prizes are supposed to be one, whoever wins the Sun Belt goes to the New Orleans Bowl. But NCAA rules state that a team must win six games to become bowl eligible, and several Sun Belt teams could win the conference without reaching the six-win mark.

NT can win its final three games, and with losses by Troy and Louisiana-Lafayette, win the Sun Belt title but get left out of the bowl game. In this situation where the champion fails to reach six wins, the decision of whether the team goes to the bowl game is left to the New Orleans Bowl committee, who can choose another Sun Belt team that has six wins over the conference champion.

“It’s all up to the bowl committee,” said Rob Broussard, director of media relations for the Sun Belt Conference. “If the conference champion has only five wins, and the second-place team has six, then the committee can choose either team to play in the bowl game.”

If the committee elects to take the five-win champion, then the conference will have to file a petition to the NCAA on behalf of the team in order to get permission to play in the bowl game.

The Sun Belt champion, not the bowl representative, is determined the traditional way. The team with the best record wins the title, with the tiebreaker coming on head-to-head records. In case of a tie involving more than two teams, the school with the best record against the next highest ranked team determines the tiebreaker.

If all else fails or not understood, then “we just flip a coin,” Broussard said.