Over the past, probably 5-7 years, the Sunbelt has gradually gone from a conference that was generally thought of as being at least somewhat inferior to the MAC to now, where it’s obvious that they are much better. This fact was emphasized yesterday with Marshall beating Notre Dame and App State beating Texas A&M. And, it wasn’t that they just beat those teams but that they went “toe to toe” with them.

Why and how did this happen? Is it cyclic? Are they pouring in more money? Thoughts?

Let's not forget Georgia Southern winning at Nebraska. Just because Nebraska has fallen on hard times lately, it's still a SBC team over a Big10 team.

They are recruiting more talented players than MAC teams.

MAC=Mediocre Athletic Conference

What resources?

They haven't just lapped the MAC, they've lapped all the G5 conferences. They've been doing things the Mountain West used to do. Last season they had two teams (Louisiana and Coastal) in the Top 25 for most of the year. After two weeks of this season they have the most wins by a G5 vs "P" teams (3) plus a win vs ranked Notre Dame (ND technically isn't a "P" because they're not in a "P" conference), they have the second-best percentage vs other G5 conferences, and they're the only G5 that hasn't lost to the other subdivision. Here's each conference's record in OOC games so far (the G5 vs G5 numbers don't include the record of independents, who are 3-8 vs G5 teams):

AAC 11-9 (0-6 vs “P”; 5-2 vs G5; 6-1 vs 1AA/FCS)
CUSA 11-11 (0-4 vs “P”; 4-6 vs G5; 7-1 vs 1AA/FCS)
MAC 7-15 (0-10 vs “P”; 2-3 vs G5; 5-2 vs 1AA/FCS)
MWC 12-14 (1-10 vs “P”; 4-2 vs G5; 7-2 vs 1AA/FCS)
SBC 18-10 (3-7 vs “P”; 6-3 vs G5; 9-0 vs 1AA/FCS)

For better or worse, the MAC is a stagnant conference with all the stability in the world. It’s footprint basically covers the rust belt, an area mostly in decline or slow growth as far as population is concerned. The Sun Belt is exactly the opposite, in terms of stability ( only top division football since 2001)and in an area of more moderate growth ( or do it seems to the casual observer like me). I have no idea how that relates to increasing interest but that’s the backdrop I see the conferences operating in.

There teams are in the south or near the south in more moderate climates where football can be played in tolerable weather instead of the Midwest where fans have to endure a month or two of winter weather.

Fans in the south are just bigger football fans, it borders on being a religion to many down there.

All Sun Belt games have been on a ESPN platform since 2011, making their product just as available to their fans as the MAC.

They have 3 programs ( App st., marshall, Ga southern?) that have been power houses in the FCS building up their football traditions and their fan bases. New programs are being added from the FCS that have the excitement of a fan base wanting to play big time.

As mentioned above, the talent down south dwarfs that in the MAC footprint. It is true that everybody recruits the south, but there’s still a lot of leftovers to pick over for the local G-5 teams. I’m sure many recruits love playing close to home.

Attendance figures bear out the decline of interest in MAC football. The MAC has fallen from about 16,400 to 13,700 since 2016 to 2021. The Sun Belt has averaged about 18,000 every year from 2016 to 2021. Lower fan interest has to correlate to dollars available for the programs I presume. The ESPN tv contracts apparently have been about $600K/year for MAC schools and about $500K for Sun Belt schools. There is a new CBS Sports deal with the MAC that brings more money, but I don’t know those details. The Sun Belt just renewed their rights deal for about $2million/school, as far as I can figure from published reports.

5-7 years ago, Marshall was not in the Sun Belt and App State had just made the jump to D-1 FBS football.

The Sun Belt looks a whole lot different now than it did two decades ago in large part because they've embraced realignment. The MAC has taken the opposite approach with stability. Stably bad.

Stability isn't bad, being stable is a good thing. Being stagnant is what is bad. The last momentum the MAC had was the 2 BCS games, that is now 5 and 8 years removed. And neither NIU or Western Michigan followed up on the BCS appearance. Nor did anyone take the reigns.

Gone are schools that dragged the Sun Belt into mediocracy and in the last 8 years they have been replaced with regional schools who care about their athletic departments. With most having an emphasizes on football.

MAC teams have been passed over at least twice in conference realignments over the past decade. I don't see any of them being such plums that they'll draw interest when future shuffles happen. The next round will likely be "P" to "P" realignment involving Pac-12 to B10 and B12. If G5 conferences need to fill in spots, teams are more likely to move up from the other subdivision.

Here's something for CUSA to crow about: Two of the Sun Belt's marquee wins were by CUSA defectors in their first year in the SBC. ODU beat VaTech and T'erd beat ND. So maybe CUSA can take some credit for those.

Actually in this context MTSU fits right in with the MAC personality wise. They're holding on to Stockstill way longer than they should have and have refused to further reinvest in their football program. They probably just didn't want to spend the travel money? I guess? Even though it's going to be worse in the long run once those FCS teams come up to CUSA.

Interesting numbers:

https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/sunbelt

You can see what each Sun Belt school spends and where they rank in FBS, and you can tab over to the MAC. It's pretty glaring that the MAC is not keeping up.