Sun Belt Week 13 Preview
North Texas @ Arkansas State - Saturday, 3 ET, no TV
These two teams, as they come to the end of the line in 2009, could strongly relate to each other. Both the Mean Green and the Red Wolves are feeling blue after finding a seemingly endless amount of ways to lose close games. UNT and ASU have both played hard this season, but like so many losing football clubs, they shy away from pressure and flinch at crunch time. Neither Todd Dodge’s roster nor Steve Roberts’ recruits have been able to avoid turnovers on must-score drives, or batten down the hatches on defense when absolutely necessary. North Texas took Ohio - an 8-3 team still in contention for the Mid-American Conference title - to overtime before falling by a point, while Arkansas State pushed nationally-ranked Iowa to the brink in Iowa City before dropping a 24-21 decision. These teams have shown they can compete, but they almost invariably fall short. All that remains for these ballclubs is to persevere when the clock ticks down in the final minutes of regulation. The team with more staying power and mental strength will come out on top in Jonesboro, Ark.
Western Kentucky @ Florida Atlantic - Saturday 4 ET, no TV
The Florida Atlantic Owls won’t make a bowl game as they did last season, but Howard Schnellenberger’s team can still attain a 5-3 conference record, which would provide a considerable share of satisfaction. The road to 5-3 begins at home for FAU, who will welcome Western Kentucky to Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
For WKU, the task is simple: Get rid of that “0″ in the win column, and snap an 18-game losing streak that caused coach David Elson to be fired earlier this year. The plight of some of the Sun Belt’s lower-division teams, such as 2-9 North Texas and 2-8 Arkansas State - isn’t exactly pleasant, but when compared to the hapless Hilltoppers, those problems don’t seem so small. The whole college football community, and football lifers of all ages and dispositions, would like to see WKU break through before this season ends. One of the saddest stories in the world of the gridiron is to see a team walk off a field in Autumn without tasting triumph on even one occasion. FAU might have a decent conference record, but the Owls have won only one home game in 2009; Western Kentucky has a puncher’s chance, and the Hilltoppers only need their aim to be true for one 60-minute segment.
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Middle Tennessee State @ Louisiana-Monroe - Saturday, 4:30 ET, ESPN360.com, GamePlan
Middle Tennessee State’s Tuesday night tilt at Troy, on Oct. 6, turned out to be the Sun Belt game of the year, but the second-biggest game of the conference season will take place this weekend in Monroe, La. This battle between the homestanding Warhawks and the visiting Blue Raiders at Malone Stadium will determine the second-place team in the league, and if Louisiana-Lafayette can topple Troy, MTSU will be playing for a share of the Sun Belt title. The big key to this game will be the ability of ULM to contain and frustrate Blue Raider quarterback Dwight Dasher. Coach Rick Stockstill’s signal caller is MTSU’s leading rusher, as well as its leading passer. Dasher has accumulated more than 300 all-purpose yards in each of his past three games, and in his last two outings against Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas State, he’s thrown for six touchdowns with only one interception. With ULM lacking consistency from starting quarterback Trey Revell - who suffered a damaging finger injury against Arkansas State on Oct. 13, and hasn’t been the same since - it will be up to coach Charlie Weatherbie to coax a top-flight performance from a Warhawk defense that needs to do some ballhawking against Dasher. If ULM can produce turnovers and create short fields for Revell, the Warhawks can gain a share of second place in the Sun Belt. If not, Middle Tennessee will stake its claim to second place… and possibly a piece of first.
Troy @ Louisiana-Lafayette - Saturday, 7 ET, no TV
It’s the final stop on the road to the New Orleans Bowl for Troy, which has the league’s top slot locked up, but not yet the outright title. Perhaps Louisiana-Monroe will make the matter moot with a victory over Middle Tennessee State, but the Trojans will want to close their season in style and not worry about the action elsewhere in the state of Louisiana. It’s true that MTSU-ULM starts two and a half hours before this tilt at Cajun Field, but Troy might as well avoid the temptation to watch the scoreboard.
Lafayette, in search of a winning season under coach Ricky Bustle, will want Troy to be distracted. That element of the day’s competition might loom larger than anything else, because if Troy’s focused and fit, the Trojans usually deliver darts and daggers into the hearts of their foes. The man who usually releases the wounding weapons for Larry Blakeney’s ballclub is quarterback Levi Brown, who has routinely torched Sun Belt defenses in 2009. Brown struggled in early-season non-conference games against Bowling Green and Florida, and he also found tough sledding in a recent contest against Arkansas as well, but in Sun Belt games, Brown’s been virtually spotless. The senior - who has thrown for over 3,500 yards this year - has tossed 15 touchdowns in conference games, and only one interception… an interception which came in a 47-21 blowout win last week against Florida Atlantic.
Lafayette will have to get Brown to throw a few more picks, or pluck fumbles from the breadbaskets of the Trojans’ backs and receivers. Without a stream of takeaways, and without a subpar performance from the visitors from Alabama, it will be hard to see how the Ragin’ Cajuns can prevail… and potentially deliver a piece of the league title to the men from Middle Tennessee State.
By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer