Did the Sun Belt Conference Get Snubbed by Bowls?

The folks at ASU Fan Rules wonder if the Sun Belt Conference got slighted with bowl selections this season.

The Bowl slate affords college football 35 games with 70 available sidelines to fill. There are 125 FBS programs. (Or maybe it’s 126. It depends on which source you reference.) Two teams – Georgia State and Miami (Ohio) – went a perfect 0-12. Eight additional teams finished the season with a single win.

By those standards, tremendous seasons were had by the following teams:

Central Michigan

Florida Atlantic

Louisiana Monroe

San Jose State

South Alabama

Texas St

Toledo

Troy

WKU

What these teams have in common are bowl eligibility, a lack of AQ-status, and no Bowl invitations for 2013. Fifty-five percent share a fourth common denominator: the Sun Belt.

Last year, four Sun Belt Conference teams went Bowling, with an additional team (Middle Tennessee) being snubbed. It was, arguably, the conference’s most successful year, if spoiled by defections.

2013 was not a banner year for the Sun Belt Conference. Though teams preformed adequately against non-BCS competition, conference members were more or less destroyed by our privileged cousin conference, the SEC. (Only the defecting Western Kentucky managed to scrape up a win.)

The last BCS rankings ever was not kind to the Sun Belt.

ULL: 66
WKU: 68
A-State: 72
ULM: 77
Troy: 80
S. Alabama: 81
Texas St.: 93
Georgia St.: LAST

This was supposed to be THE year for UL-Lafayette, who was predicted to upend Arkansas to open the season. Western Kentucky was supposed to dominate the conference and maybe upset Tennessee. A-State had penciled in a W next to Auburn or Missouri (and inked a W for Memphis). ULM was supposed to retain its out-of-conference magic.  None of that happened. And the BCS rankings reflect that.

To be fair, only one of the four remaining snubs finished with a better BCS ranking than three of the top ranked Sun Belt teams.

Toledo 56
San Jose 76
FAU 86
Central Michigan: 89

Still, if you count seventy Bowl openings, with the top Bowls going to the teams with the best BCS rankings, you can reasonably argue that any team finishing above 70 in the BCS deserve to be sitting home. If that’s a legitimate metric, then Toledo and Western Kentucky got jobbed.

Except, Western Kentucky finished 5th in the Sun Belt. (HOW CAN THAT BE? THEY HAVE BOBBY PETRINO?) Toledo finished 3rd in the MAC West. Conference performance plays a role. And to deny the Sun Belt Champion a bowl game would have been a crime.

This doesn’t explain why the Sun Belt features such a disproportionate number of Bowl snubs compared to other conferences. The MAC had two. The Mountain West and C-USA had one. The Sun Belt has five. FIVE! Every Bowl eligible school from The Privileged Five was spared the indignity of being left out in the cold.

The MAC and the Sun Belt also had the luxury of playing a conference team with zero wins on the year. Four of the Sun Belt’s five snubs finished the season 6-6. A win against Georgia State is barely a win at all. It’s half a win. So you could view ULM, Troy, Texas State and South Alabama as 5.5-6, sinking them below eligibility.

Western Kentucky is really the only team from the Sun Belt with a legitimate beef. They boast a sub-70 BCS ranking and the most wins in the Sun Belt outside of ULL. They beat Kentucky and Navy. A celebrity coach prowls their sideline. And yet, Karl Benson couldn’t pay a Bowl to take them.

Last year, the Sun Belt Conference earned its four Bowl births. This year, the two the conference was slated to fill are the only two we deserve. As for A-State, we fell to Memphis. We’re thrilled to be in Mobile.