I’m breaking the preview up into weekday games and weekend games. In this newsletter I’ll break down tonight and tomorrow’s contests. On Friday I’ll send out Saturday’s previews. Enjoy and thanks for reading, as always.
Weekday games
Hypothetical Sun Belt
Podcast
Picks
Wednesday
No. 14 Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State
Time: 6:30 CT
TV: ESPN2
Spread: CCU -4.5
Location: Boone, NC
We’ve arrived at the single most important game of the Sun Belt conference slate. A Coastal Carolina win almost guarantees the Chanticleers a spot in the title game. Coastal would have to lose three of its last five games and App State, Troy or Georgia State would have to win out in order for the Chants to miss the championship game.
But if App State wins tonight, the Mountaineers would remain in control of their own destiny.
The Mountaineers are eight days removed from the worst conference loss the team has taken since joining the league. Coastal is fresh off a bye week. App State was physically tossed around on the line of scrimmage, Coastal got to play an ultra-soft Arkansas State defense 13 days ago.
There are a lot of factors at play here. App State is battle tested and Coastal will be lining up against the most talented team it has seen this year in a hostile environment. The Mountaineers have been dinged up all season long and the Chants have been fairly healthy thanks to lighter workloads.
So what do the numbers say? Right away, you have to look at Coastal’s offense first. It is one of the most efficient units in the entire country and the Mountaineers better have a plan for the multi-pronged attack they are going to see. The Chants can run three or four different plays out of the exact same look and have four key playmakers that can pick up yardage from different origin points behind the LOS. That’s a lot to prepare for and nobody has succeeded in defending it yet.
Coastal has faced the fewest third downs in the nation by a healthy margin and is leading all of football at converting what third downs it does see at a 61.8 percent clip. The last team to finish over 60 percent on the year was Miami in 2006.
The balanced attack Jamey Chadwell brings allowed Coastal to reach 40 touchdowns faster than any Sun Belt team before. The Chants are first in the Sun Belt in rushing yards, yards per carry and touchdowns on the ground behind the electric duo of Shermari Jones and Reese White.
Coastal is also top two, and mostly No. 1, in every passing category in the conference. It is one of only eight schools left to not have more than one interception thrown. Grayson McCall leads the nation in completion percentage (79.8 percent), yards per attempt (13.6) and quarterback rating (234.3).
That’s a lot. So what’s the next thing to look at in this game? No, it’s not App State’s defense. Sure, D’Marco Jackson and company will need to have a big game but that’s not what matters most in toppling Coastal. It’s the Mountaineer offense.
Before Louisiana, Chase Brice was having a fine season. In fact, Brice was playing at a level that App State had not seen out of a quarterback in a while. But then Louisiana happened. Brice turned the ball over three times and the Mountaineer defense stumbled out of the gates against an offense that does not rival Coastal’s explosiveness, to say the least. This created a 20-6 halftime deficit and the momentum carried over.
Brice has to be sharp and his offensive line has to be on its A-game. App State hopes to finally have its three-headed monster at running back healthy in Nate Noel, Cam Peoples and Daetrich Harrington. Coastal’s weak point is a powerful run game. UMass, ULM and Arkansas State altogether mustered up 118 rushing yards on 72 attempts (1.6 YPC) against Coastal but The Citadel, Kansas and Buffalo all picked up over four yards per carry. This is where App State can hang in and eat it up time of possession.
The Mountaineers have a bevy of talent on the outside beginning with Thomas Hennigan and Corey Sutton but it doesn’t mean anything if Brice isn’t protected and taking care of the ball. Establishing the run can limit the opportunities Coastal has to get the ball in the hands of its own playmakers in Jaivon Heighligh and Isaiah Likely.
Don’t count out the Mountaineers before the first whistle. It will be an uphill battle and it may end badly for the home side, but then again it might just end in sweet revenge.
Thursday
Louisiana at Arkansas State
Time: 6:30 CT
TV: ESPNU
Spread: UL -18
Location: Jonesboro, Ar
The hottest team in the West runs into the worst defense in Sun Belt history (so far) on Thursday night. Layne Hatcher is set to start for the Red Wolves with James Blackman out due to a shoulder injury.
Arkansas State has been the team everyone else has gone to to get some extra style points and pad a few stats. The best game this defense has played so far in FBS play was the Georgia Southern game in which the Red Wolves gave up only 540 total yards. The fewest points allowed in a FBS game was the Tulsa contest where Arkansas State gave up 41 points on 663 yards of offense. It’s bad.
On the other side, you’ve got a Louisiana squad filled with a lot of juice. The Cajuns don’t do any one thing exceptionally well but they do a lot of things “pretty okay.” If Louisiana runs the ball well against the 129th ranked rushing defense, it won’t have a problem here.
Hypothetical Sun Belt
In case you live under a rock, there’s been some noise centered around the Sun Belt and realignment. A big domino just fell with the American raiding nearly half of CUSA. The Sun Belt may very well pick off a few more, according to many reports.
I took four teams that have been mentioned in the reports and slid them into the Sun Belt with Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings to give you an idea of what a 14-team Sun Belt might look like.
Marshall would add a strong program to an already good upper tier. James Madison would compete pretty quickly and fit in with the meat of the conference. Southern Miss is in a rebuilding phase much like several other league teams. Old Dominion is bad and for the most part always has been.
This would be a good baseball conference.
Podcast
Here’s our weekly podcast. Enjoy.