You’re sitting in an elementary school classroom. At your table, there are four children, hanging on your every word. You pose this question:
“What is better? Playing in a big, fancy playground, or playing in a playground with no slides or swings?”
“A big, fancy playground!” the kids would exclaim, at least according to the hopes of modern day television.
It’s a simple question with a simpler answer, and Georgia State Athletics used the “bigger is better” approach when deciding to move from the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) to the SunBelt.
The SunBelt Conference is not the SEC, but it is a growing conference in prestige and prominence while the CAA seems to be stuck in reverse.
The SunBelt was established in 1976, Georgia State being one of its founding members. However it left in 1991, as part of a mass exodus of schools that jumped ship for greener pastures after the 1990-91 basketball season.
When I think of the SunBelt, the first thing that comes to mind is quality College Football. The SunBelt’s football teams almost always battle with at least one SEC opponent every year, and surprisingly, these are games you won’t want to miss.
For example, this past football season, Florida University played Louisiana-Lafayette in a mid-season battle. The game was a low scoring affair, but Louisiana led for majority of the game making the Gators and the country raise their eyebrows. Louisiana ultimately lost, as Florida tied it and subsequently won, but it still left many with a good impression.
Basketball is also gaining prominence in the SunBelt, with SunBelt teams regularly making NCAA Tournament appearances. Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee went to the tournament this past March, solidifying the conference as a tough out in tournament rounds.
Starting in the previous NCAA Tournament, the SunBelt is headed towards a trend of receiving two bids into the tournament: the automatic bid for the conference champion and an at-large bid, lending credence to the conferences growing prominence in the sport.
So what about the CAA? To me, the CAA is like your old flip-phone sitting in the drawer of your old dresser. Some people still use it, but most people don’t even know where or what it is.
The CAA is losing members. Every time the CAA has a successful program, such as VCU in 2011 or Old Dominion this year, that school leaves. The CAA just doesn’t have the prestige of a FBS conference.
The CAA has no major television contracts and has only participated in football since 2007. They are an FCS conference that has never really seen any consistent success in any NCAA postseason, and they only ever get one bid into the NCAA tournament (the conference champions), who usually is a 16 seed and therefore has to play in the First Four round of the tournament.
The SunBelt has television contracts in both football and basketball with ESPN, started sponsoring football in 2001 and is already an FBS conference with two guaranteed bowls for teams who are eligible (New Orleans Bowl and GoDaddy.com Bowl), but consistently participate in more.
In addition, Georgia Southern, Appalachian State, and the University of Texas Arlington are joining the SunBelt in addition to Georgia State as full members with a couple other schools joining the conference with individual sports.
The SunBelt is overflowing with opportunity in every direction. The key will be for Georgia State’s sports to rise up to the challenge of being in an ever-growing and dominant conference.
In this conference, every Georgia State Athlete has a chance to become a legend, just like NFL Hall of Famer “Mean” Joe Greene, former baseball All-Star Luis Gonzalez, baseball All-Star, 2007 World Series Champion, and MVP Mike Lowel, and yes even country music star Tim McGraw, all former participants of the SunBelt.
So who knows, maybe Georgia State can give Alabama a run for its money this year, or the basketball teams can make it to the March tournaments, or baseball and softball to the College World Series.
It is evident that moving to the SunBelt adds more opportunities, possibilities and prestige. The benefits to Georgia State are limitless in their potential.
After all, bigger is better.
