Sun Belt announces cancelation of conference championship game
College football’s championship weekend has lost one of its more intriguing matchups.
The Sun Belt announced late Thursday that the championship game between Louisiana and Coastal Carolina is off.
“The conference championship game has been canceled due to a positive COVID-19 test within the Coastal Carolina program,” the conference announced. “Because of contact tracing, an entire position group would not be available to play due to possible exposure and therefore the game cannot be played.”
Coastal Carolina, at 11-0, is currently No. 12 in the College Football Playoff rankings. No. 19 Louisiana is 9-1 on the year. The Chants had a prime opportunity to jump No. 11 Indiana in the final CFP rankings which set the New Year’s Six bowl lineup. No. 9 Cincinnati (8-0) is in line for the Group of 5 designated bid to a NY6 game with a win in the AAC Championship Game against Tulsa.
The Sun Belt will recognize Coastal Carolina and Louisiana as co-champions.
“We are very disappointed that the championship game cannot be played, but we are so proud of all of the players and staff members and their hard work during this truly challenging season,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill in the announcement. “We will honor both teams as 2020 Sun Belt Conference Co-Champions.”
The Sun Belt is the sound of one hand clapping.
Coastal is at least as good as the LSU team that won last week.
LSU is better than 2019 Georgia State.
No doubt-tell me if they’re better than Coastal and refute the point about the Sun Belt being 3-0 against power 5 but somehow lousy this year. Tough ask, I know, it would require you to make an argument.
You are a moron. Do you keep up with anything outside of the world of Florida? Fortunate that the gators dont have to play Coastal this year. There is some great play coming out of the Sun Belt. I dont know where you got your elite position to look down on anything not Florida. Did you play in the SEC? No. Could you play in the Sun Belt? Hell no.
Missing from the story: their wins and losses among conference or non-conference opponents? Indiana played an all Big 10 schedule and lost only to Ohio State by a close score. I know it’s popular to count every win equally but I’m sure not thinking ‘beating an independent BYU by 5 points or beating Kansas by any margin you want to imagine’ makes them likely to beat 2020 Big Ten Indiana. This would be a really good year to just never mention anybody’s opinion of the most imaginary ranking of football teams that don’t play each other in the history of college football. And friendly readers, please don’t think I’m impressed with the Big Ten this year either. Nobody really knows, admit that, but still no reason to assume every conference win is equal.
The Big10 is easily the worst power 5 this year-look at the game stats and records in that conference. Only Ohio St has generated any sort of offense. The Sun Belt is 3-0 against the Power 5-all Big XII teams. The Big XII is much better than the Big 10 this year.
Fans take a view of G5 conferences much dimmer than the players in the P5. I wonder which is closer to being accurate.
What a shame. It was such a good game the first time they met. I dunno about the “co-champions” idea, though, since the Chanticleers won that first game.
Would have been some good football.
Sorry CC, you guys played way to many games to be ranked in the Top 4, should have started cancelling after 5 games…Ohio St says hey….
I was thinking…
Since Louisiana has already purchased non-refundable flights to Conway SC for the Sunbelt Championship, why not just come to ATHENS instead? How bout it Greg?
I’d love to see it. Our CC to Athens.
Unfortunately it appears CC is the one in covid protocol so it would have to be Looosianna to Athens. I fear I’m the last one on the island still holding out hope our seniors could have a proper send off…they deserve it