The Sun Belt Conference race is going to interesting this year.  At this point in the conference race Louisiana-Lafayette (4-1, 2-0), under first year Head Coach Mark Hudspeth, is leading the conference. They have already won more games this year than last year when they went 3-9.

In second place is Arkansas State (2-0, 1-0) and Troy (1-0, 1-0).

Florida International (2-2, 1-1) is tied in fourth with Western Kentucky (1-4, 1-1). The Hilltoppers defeated Middle Tennessee (1-4, 0-2) Thursday in double overtime 26-23. The game was televised on ESPNU.  

Louisiana-Monroe is in sixth place with a 1-3, 0-0

Coming in tied for seventh are North Texas (1-4, 0-1) and Florida Atlantic (0-4, 0-1)

Middle Tennessee holds down the last position at 1-5, 0-2.

Strictly speaking stats. No team with two losses has won the conference championship. Therefore, Middle Tennessee who tied for the 2006 Championship with Troy is basically out of title contention.

At this point it is a four horse race with five time in a row champion Troy, the Trojans tied for the title last year with FIU. Sharing first place with Troy are ULL, ASU, FIU and ULM with no losses.

On the verge of watching others vie for the conference title are North Texas, FAU, FIU and WSU all with one loss.

Bottomline, it is elimination weekend for North Texas and FAU, the game will be on the Sun Belt Network. One will move on with one loss while the other will drop to two losses. This will be a hard fought game for FAU. Coach Snellenberger has announced this will be his final season of football and the team is winless at this point in the season. They will be giving all they have to get the outgoing coach some wins. FIU is safe with an out-of-conference game with Akron.

ULL will host Troy for a share of first place. One will remain on top of the division and one will drop to the one lost category.  Troy, last year’s New Orleans Bowl winner wants to make it six in row for conference titles. The game will be on ESPN3

The ASU and ULM game will also determine which team will be undefeated in league play and which one will have its first loss in the Sun Belt. ASU with a win will remain in the top spot with either ULL or Troy. An ULM win would put the Warhawks tied with ULL or Troy in the undefeated category one game behind both in wins. ULM will have one win while ULL or Troy will have two wins.