4 Things we Learned from Week 2 of #FunBelt Action

Two weeks into the 2016 season and a lot has already happened. Despite that, some teams are still great unknowns to even their own fanbase. That’ll change soon but for now, let’s draw on some conclusions from the second week of college football action.

The league right now is App State, Georgia Southern, then everyone else

This won’t be popular among the western members of the league, but right now, the Sun Belt belongs to the Mountaineers and Eagles.

App State followed up the near-hit at Rocky Top with a 31-7 victory over Old Dominion while Georgia Southern took care of Clanga-killers South Alabama on the road 24-9. After that….ugh. Louisiana barely got by FCS McNeese State 30-22, Georgia State got smacked by Air Force 48-14, ULM and Idaho got exercise and fresh air, NMSU won but still has major questions, Texas State is gonna be the most fun 3-9 team in America and we’ll get to Arkansas State’s problems.

Both teams have different chances at home this week. The Mountaineers host the #25 Miami Hurricanes at Noon ET on ESPN while the Eagles host ULM that night in a game they’re expected to win big. In Week 4, both teams will look to pull a reverse Sherman in the MAC-lands, but we’ll get to that.

We forgot one team, and for good reason. That ream could jump into the upper tier….

Troy is now expected make a bowl game and more

Jumping on the Troy train might be reactionary after the Trojans 30-24 close loss at Clemson last week, but it’s not like Troy was predicted to go 2-10. Neal Brown has a team that can make noise in the Sun Belt this season and now it feels foolish to keep Troy out of a bowl game. Versus Clemson, the Trojans had 386 yards of total offense and Brandon Silvers went 24-42 for 233 yards, two touchdowns and two picks.

We’ll know a lot more about this Troy team next week traveling to Southern Miss, but for now, it’s hard to keep this team bowl-less, especially hosting App State and Arkansas State in November while travelling to Georgia Southern in the final week.

There’s life in New Mexico State

The Aggies went into the Rio Grande Rivalry with New Mexico last week in rough shape. A bad loss to UTEP the week before and now Larry Rose III had NMSU looking ripe for another rivalry loss. Fate had other plans as the Aggies pulled out a 32-31 shocker in Las Cruces on Saturday night. The defense did just enough as Rodney Butler and Terrill Hanks were racking up tackles while Tyler Rogers was a marked improvement from the first week.

Life doesn’t get any easier for NMSU as they travel to Kentucky this week and then Troy the following week, but this week, it’s good to be an Aggie.

Arkansas State has major defensive troubles

A week after giving up 555 yards at home to Toledo, the Red Wolves went to the plains of Auburn and gave up an absurd 706 yards. While you might say it was an SEC opponent, that’s still a ridiculous yardage total. The ways the yards were given up were different. The Rockets threw for 371 yards while the War Eagle Tigers ran for 462 yards.

For a team like the defending Sun Belt Champions, chalking it up to early non-conference woes doesn’t cut it. This week doesn’t help as A-State has a Friday night match-up at Utah State, who are currently nine-point favorites.