Ga Southern and App State Taking The Plunge To Sun Belt...??? (UPDATED)

Looks that way...

Sources close to one end of the situation in Statesboro tell OSG Sports and social media from the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper have both schools, rivals in the Southern Conference, pursuing the same in the Sun Belt Conference.

Tommy Bowman, sports beat writer for the Journal sent out the following from his Twitter: @AppTrailWSJ

Appalachian State will accept an invitation to join the Sun Belt Conference this week, probably on Wednesday, according to a source at ASU

Georgia Southern, while currently not addressing anything resembling gossip, rumor, or innuendo, is moving on up- "sources" tell SB Nation's Steven Godfrey. Godfrey reports GSU will make the full move in 2015, with a transitional season in 2014 and no change to its 2013 schedule.

With FAU, FIU, Middle Tennessee, and North Texas moving to Conference USA, the new dynamic of the 10-team conference would be: App State, Arkansas State, Ga Southern, Ga State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, South Alabama, Texas State, Troy, and Western Kentucky.

This would also fall in line with the announcement being made introducing Brian Bohannon as Kennesaw State's new football coach for their fledgling program tomorrow morning on campus north of Atlanta. The SoCon is looking for members if the move of two of their heavy hitters is to happen and Kennesaw keeps their Atlanta footprint.

Here's how Southern ended their season...
((HT: EaglesGATA))


Southern voted for a fee increase to fund any kind of upgrade, so it was a matter of time...

1600 UPDATE: Matt Yogus at the Statesboro Herald is confirming from sources on his end as well...

2100 UPDATE: Dennis Dodd over at CBS Sports adds that former WAC members Idaho and New Mexico State will be added in 2014 as well. This will give the new Sun Belt 12 teams and will allow for a two-division, playoff structure.

With the new playoff set-up, if the Sun Belt champ finishes as the highest rated team among the Group of Five conferences (the Sun Belt, Conference USA, the new Big East, Mountain West and MAC) it will get a berth in one of the new playoff bowls when the new post-season look starts.

Big East announces Divisions, prepares for crazy travel schedules

So...Temple University, how much travel fun are you going to have starting in 2013. Hope you've increased your travel budget.

The Big East, sans automatic bid for College Football's championships, announced on Tuesday the 12-team league will break into 2-divisions. The East...and the West.

No big deal you say? Well, only if you are in any other normal conference.

Because you see, the Big East, really doesn't have much of an Eastern Footprint these days.

Here's the breakdown:

East
UCF
Cincinnati
UConn
Louisville
Rutgers
S.Florida

West
Boise St.
Houston
Memphis
San Diego St
SMU
Temple

Think about that for a minute. The East, while covering a lot of ground, doesn't quite balance out. Temple (based in Philly) will now be flying to San Diego, Boise...and Houston. Every year.

Good thing they have a MASSIVE travel budget and lots of time to travel. Otherwise this would inconvenience student-athletes and fans.

Oh wait, it will.

We wish the Big East good luck as they step down from their previous status as a "BCS" league. From here on in, or beginning in 2014, they become part of the "Group of Five" who managed to get a small payout and a seat at the Big Boy table for the soon-to-be College Football playoff. They'll fight it out with Conference USA, the MAC, the MWC and the Sun Belt for the "Final" playoff berth.

Good luck with that boys.

Your 2014 College Football Playoff Takes Shape

Soon Gone?

No, the term BCS isn't going away. And you'll have to add the term "Group of Five" to your vocabulary as well.

The powers that rule over College Football (not the NCAA) appear to have come to an agreement over the set-up for the new "College Football Playoff System".

What it means, isn't totally clear, but it will apparently encompass 6 Bowl Games as a part of the "New" playoff system.That system is supposed to open up more than the "Top 2" subjective winners playing for the title.

Got it so far?

Three of the bowls will be "Contract Bowls" three will be "Host Bowls". Or in English, the Orange, Sugar and Rose Bowl will part of the "Contract" games, the Cotton, Fiesta and Chick-Fil-A appear to be the frontrunners for the "Host Bowls".

Still with us?

Five of the 6 "Automatic" berths will go to the "BCS" teams (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC and PAC 12), the extra berth will go to the highest rated "Non-BCS" team. And yes, the payout from the gazillion dollar deal ESPN will apparently pay for this will go primarily to the Big 5. The "Group of Five" will get a smaller cut that they will have to split amongst themselves. That group comes from a combination of: The Big East (former BCS league), Conference USA, The Midwest Athletic Conference, The Mountain West and The Sun Belt.

Confused? We are.

Here's the summary (We think). You are going to get basically the same system we have now. It's just some games will have more priority than others. And....in theory, this should eliminate some of the "Best Travel" teams getting picked over actual better teams.

And really, this just gets complicated because of the stupid TV deals each "Big Bowl" has cut. It really marginalizes the smaller games and quite honestly makes them irrelevant.

We can only hope this will lead to the elimination of some of those games and the idiotic rules that schools have to pay for unsold tickets. Like many, we too wonder about a system that requires schools to play in small games in obscure locations and then be on the hook if the fan base can't afford to travel to said location en masse.