Arkansas Online

SUN BELT COMMISH: No rescheduled games.

By Eli Lederman

NEW ORLEANS — Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill set the tone for the league’s 2021 football season and covid-19 in his state of the conference speech at Sun Belt Football Media Day on Thursday, charting a landscape that will look decidedly different from 2020.

“This year, we will not reschedule games,” Gill said in front of a lectern at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel.

“If it’s a conference game and a team is not able to participate, then that will be a forfeit. We will not reschedule that game.”

The new policy is a departure from last fall — when games were moved and others were declared no contest across the Sun Belt — and sets up a clear incentive for programs and their student-athletes to be vaccinated and follow covid-19 guidelines ahead the fall season without mandating formally vaccines.

“There’s really nowhere to reschedule the games, so there’s a practical piece to it,” Gill later told the Arkansas DemocratGazette. “But there’s also an accountability aspect. There’s so many strategies that can be employed that we really didn’t have last year, particularly on the vaccination front to limit disruption from covid. So if you employ those, you’ll be able to play.”

Vaccinated athletes, coaches and other team personnel will also be exempt from testing protocols this fall, according to Gill.

Arkansas State University Coach Butch Jones declined to share the vaccination status of the Red Wolves’ program. He said ASU is continually educating its players on vaccinations and the lingering dangers of covid-19, and that vaccines have been made available to each member of the program.

“I’m pleased with where we’re at,” Jones said. “We still have a little bit to go. Our players are understanding that it’s going to be a competitive advantage for the programs and teams that have the ability to be vaccinated.”

More from Gill

Gill also addressed national issues hovering over college football and announced that the conference has extended its media rights deal with ESPN during his remarks.

The extension with ESPN runs through the 2030-31 academic year and will increase the number of Sun Belt football games appearing on ESPN’s linear channels (ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPNU) by more than 50%, up from nine conference contests per season to as many as 14, according to Gill.

“We’re excited about the Sun Belt having more opportunities on ESPN,” he said. “They’ve been a great partner. They really are college football. We’re so lucky to have that partnership and to get to expand it.”

The announcement came on the same day the conference launched its new production studio and production room at the New Orleans Superdome, which will produce more than 100 live events each year.

Regarding the issue of name, imagine and likeness across college athletics, Gill said the conference believes in the push for a national standard on NIL legislation, but will continue to support its athletes and institutions on the matter the in the mean time.

“I just think consistency would be better,” Gill said. “I think what it allows us to do is understand it in a deeper way and could give opportunities to studentathletes, rather than this hodge podge of various state laws that make things more confusing.”

Gill also expressed the conference’s continued support of the proposed plan expanding the College Football Playoff field to 12 teams, pointing out that Coastal Carolina likely would have qualified for the playoff under the system last season.

“With 12 teams, we will have a team in contention every year,” he said.

Added motivation

Reigning Sun Belt East Division champion Coastal Carolina and West Division counterpart LouisianaLafayette each return in 2021 with unfinished business from a year ago, when a covid-19 outbreak within the Chanticleers’ program canceled the 2020 Sun Belt title game and left the conference without a champion.

On Thursday, members of each program expressed their motivation to return to that championship game.

“Most people think we won last year because of covid, like it was a fluke,” Coastal Carolina Coach Jamey Chadwell said. “That’s out there and our players hear that. It just adds fuel. We’ve still got something to prove.”

The Chanticleers return 19 starters after it was picked to finish last in the 2020 preseason poll. Among those returnees is the 2021 preseason Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year Grayson McCall, who is to be protected by an offensive line that remains intact from last fall, while Chadwell’s defense brings back 10 of its 11 starters.

“People view us differently now,” Chadwell said.

Led by Coach Billy Napier, the Ragin’ Cajuns appear even more formidable than when they finished 10-1 a year ago. Quarterback Levi Lewis returns as does most of a defense that allowed the fewest points in the Sun Belt last fall.

Both teams were selected to claim their respective division titles for a second year in a row in Tuesday’s preseason poll, a result that would set up another highly anticipated title game on Dec. 4.

“I think [last year] left a big chip on our shoulders,” said Louisiana-Lafayette offensive lineman Max Mitchell. “We were obviously disappointed we didn’t get to participate in the last game of the year. That’s motivated us through the spring and it’s a motivating factor for us this year.”

About ASU …

Several Sun Belt coaches had plenty to say about ASU and Coach Butch Jones, including:

Georgia Southern Coach Chad Lunsford on ASU under Jones:

“They seem to just keep popping up everywhere. You see them on social media and you can tell they’re doing a great job in recruiting and their players building a great culture.”

Troy Coach Chip Lindsey on ASU’s influx of transfers:

“I think it means they’re dangerous. You don’t know anything about them. That’s the thing the portal allows you to do. It helps you get some players in there a little faster than you could normally.”

Texas State Coach Jake Spavital on Jones’ style:

“I think whatever he learned at Alabama, you’re going to see a lot of that. You’ll see him run the football and follow the Alabama way. He’s got his ways of doing it. I think it’s going to be fun to see what he does with what they’ve already built at Arkansas State.”

Coastal Carolina Coach Jamey Chadwell on Red Wolves quarterback Layne Hatcher:

“One thing I know about him is that he’s a gunslinger. He competes. And he’s tough. The thing I’ve seen is that people try to replace and say he can’t play, but he always finds a way to do it. That tells you he’s got something special about him. The challenge for us playing a guy like that - no matter how times you knock him down, he keeps coming back.”

High hopes

Butch Jones is one of three first-year head coaches in the Sun Belt, joined by South Alabama’s Kane Wommack and LouisianaMonroe’s Terry Bowden. Like Jones at ASU, each has high hopes for their new endeavors.

Wommack was a defensive coordinator at South Alabama in 2016 and 2017, and returns after a successful stint in the same role at Indiana from 201820. Taking over a Jaguars program that has yet to record a winning season since joining the FBS in 2012, his arrival coincides with the opening of a $78 million stadium on campus and the start of what he hopes is new era at South Alabama.

“To know all the resources that have been put into this program and to know that our best days are ahead of us is a really exciting thought,” Wommack said. “We get to create a new tradition on our camp. We get to accomplish things that have never been done.”

Bowden, 65, declared that this heading coaching job with the Warhawks will be his last, and he hopes to build a rising program he can pass on to his successor. Louisiana-Monroe has recorded more than six wins in a season only once since 1993, but with Rich Rodriguez running Bowden’s offense, the former Auburn and North Alabama coach feels ready to push the program in a new direction.

“I’ve learned how to turn a program around,” Bowden said. I’m not a special coach. But I think I’m uniquely prepared for a job like this.”

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2021-07-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

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