The Sun Belt has reached the part of the season where the calendar starts getting creative. Tuesday football. Thursday football. Saturday football with enough history attached to require its own luggage.
This week, Louisiana Tech and Louisiana are renewing a rivalry that has been sitting on the shelf since 2015. App State is welcoming back a championship team. James Madison is taking its perfect record somewhere perfection has historically been difficult to locate.
And two punt returners just reminded
everyone that the most interesting play in a football game can begin with someone kicking the ball away.
As always, credit to the sports information staffs doing the digging, documenting, and occasional alphabet counting. The game notes remain an excellent place to find the stories hiding underneath the scoreboard.
For the record, here’s what caught my eye in the Sun Belt’s Week 6 packets.
1. Louisiana Tech and Louisiana are picking up a very old conversation
Eleven years between meetings is a long time to leave a rivalry on read.
Louisiana visits Louisiana Tech on Saturday for the programs’ 88th meeting, their first since 2015 and their first as conference opponents since 1995, when both belonged to the Big West.
Now they’re doing it in the Sun Belt. Saturday also marks Louisiana Tech’s first Sun Belt football conference opener and the first Sun Belt football game played in Ruston.
The Bulldogs bring an eight-game winning streak in the series, dating to 1997. That is the longest streak either side has put together in a rivalry that began in 1910.
Louisiana arrives at 4-1. Tech enters at 2-2.
2. App State is bringing the middle chapter of the three-peat home
Some homecoming guests bring a casserole. These bring a national championship.
App State will recognize its 2006 FCS championship team on the field Saturday when Old Dominion visits Boone. Twenty years later, the résumé still reads like something you’d build in a video game.
After losing the opener at NC State, that team won 14 straight games. It went 13-0 with true freshman Armanti Edwards starting at quarterback and finished the season by beating UMass 28-17 for the national title.
Kevin Richardson scored four touchdowns in that championship game. The defense allowed just 14.9 points per game across the season.
This was the middle title of App State’s 2005-07 three-peat. The middle child, apparently, had absolutely no trouble getting attention.
Saturday’s current Mountaineers enter at 3-1 for their Sun Belt opener. That is quite a group to have watching from the sideline.
3. James Madison’s next test comes with a stubborn home-field clause
JMU is 5-0. Georgia Southern is 6-0 against JMU at Paulson Stadium.
Both things can be true. Only one gets to stay spotless Saturday night.
The Dukes have won 10 straight Sun Belt regular-season games, and Billy Napier has won 15 straight regular-season games in the league dating to his time at Louisiana. He also went 3-0 against Georgia Southern while coaching the Ragin’ Cajuns.
But JMU has never won in Statesboro. The home team has won all four meetings since the Dukes joined the Sun Belt.
JMU is coming off a 45-17 win over Marshall in which George Pettaway rushed for a career-best 206 yards and two touchdowns. Georgia Southern just won 31-24 at Coastal Carolina, with Weston Bryan contributing a 67-yard touchdown run, the Eagles’ longest by a quarterback since 2021.
An unbeaten contender, a familiar coach, and a venue with a perfect record against the visitor. Paulson has a pretty good argument for keeping the lights on late.
4. The punt returners would like a word
Old Dominion’s Devin Roche had been getting close. Three punt returns of at least 40 yards over the previous year and a half. Plenty of open grass. Still no touchdown.
Then came a 78-yard return at Georgia State last Saturday, the longest punt return in ODU history and the Monarchs’ first punt return touchdown since 2018.
Across the conference, Coastal Carolina’s Robby Washington took one 73 yards against Georgia Southern. It was the Chanticleers’ longest punt return since moving to FBS in 2017 and their first non-blocked punt return touchdown since 2019.
Washington scored with 23 seconds left before halftime, turning a 17-3 deficit into a one-score game. Roche supplied ODU’s only touchdown in a 42-10 loss.
Neither return produced a win. Both produced a reminder: covering a punt is a full football assignment, right up until the ball carrier decides to turn it into a track meet.
5. Southern Miss has a little Coffeyville in the 601
A roster with 74 newcomers sounds like a lot of introductions.
For five Southern Miss players, at least, the introductions were already handled in Kansas.
The Golden Eagles’ notes call them the “Coffeyville Five”: Kameron Cyprien, Steven Robinson, Wesley Edison, Dante Devine, and Liam Cassidy. All five spent at least some time together playing for the Coffeyville Community College Red Ravens before landing in Hattiesburg.
That matters on a roster where newcomers account for 66 percent of the listed 112 players. Chemistry has to come from somewhere, and sometimes it comes with a junior college forwarding address.
Robinson made an immediate impression in his Southern Miss debut, rushing for 123 yards and three touchdowns against Alcorn State.
The Golden Eagles’ Tuesday matchup with Troy opened their conference schedule with a hard-fought 55-34 loss to the Trojans.
6. Marshall’s favorite connection is a mouthful
Carlos Del Rio-Wilson to Xayvion Turner-Bradshaw.
Good luck fitting that neatly into a hurried play-by-play call.
Marshall’s notes count 39 letters between the quarterback and receiver, then back up the wordplay with production: 22 connections for 324 yards and four touchdowns through five games.
The pair supplied Marshall’s first score in three of those five games. So while the names take a moment, the connection has been getting to work early.
The Herd host Coastal Carolina on Saturday with both teams looking for their first conference win. It is also Marshall’s annual “We Are … Herd Strong!” game, honoring and remembering those impacted by cancer.
There is a football reason to pay attention in Huntington this weekend. There is a human one, too.
More from around the conference
- South Alabama: Jared Hollins threw for a career-high 321 yards and three touchdowns in the Jaguars’ 52-35 win over ULM. Brendan Jenkins already has surpassed his 2025 totals in catches, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. Thursday’s trip to Arkansas State gives that growing passing game a national stage on ESPN2.
- Arkansas State: Joe Drew’s 5.4 solo tackles per game lead the Sun Belt entering the week. The Red Wolves’ meeting with South Alabama is the series’ first Thursday game and its first non-Saturday meeting in Jonesboro.
- Troy: The pregame packet for Tuesday’s Southern Miss matchup listed Barry McKnight in his 25th year as the Voice of the Trojans, with 303 consecutive Troy football broadcasts. Players change. Coaches change. That is a remarkable amount of continuity behind a microphone.
- Old Dominion: Koa Naotala is the first three-time team captain under Ricky Rahne and only the third in program history. The former walk-on joins Taylor Heinicke and four-time captain Craig Wilkins in that club.
- Georgia Southern: The Eagles have 11 sacks through five games under new defensive coordinator Mike Mutz. They had 12 in 13 games last season. That is a substantial change for a defense about to face the unbeaten Dukes.
- Georgia State: The Panthers are on bye this week after their 42-10 win over Old Dominion.
