After last year’s huge victory of the University of Florida there is no surprise that the Georgia Southern football is becoming a force to wreck with. As of 2014 Georgia Southern University is OFFICIALLY in the Sun Belt Conference. With this huge move there are lots of changes that affect not only the athletes, but also the students and entire Statesboro community.
The Sun Belt Conference was established nearly 40 years ago. The league was originally founded as a home for some of the nation’s premier mid-major basketball teams. It wasn’t until 2001 that the Sun Belt began to sponsoring football teams as well. The Sun Belt currently included a total of seven bowl games. As of the 2016 season, the Sun Belt will also be part of a rotation of conferences that will send a team to the Bahamas Bowl and the Miami Beach Bowl.
Georgia Southern’s football program was reinstated in 1976 when the school had an enrollment rate of around 6,000 students. Today is 2014 Georgia Southern has over 17,000 enrolled students and is continuing to grow each year.
Paulson Stadium has recently gone under a huge makeover in honor of the new conference. Paulson originally was designed to comfortably sit a smaller university, but with the increase in enrollment, we desperately needed new seats. Paulson is now equipped to sit 25,000 visitors. TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND! That’s enough space to fit every single student and then most of the local community.
Georgia Southern will have the opportunity to play against other Sun Belt teams including Appalachian States University, Arkansas State University, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Georgia State University. Rounding out the complete roster of Sun Belt teams are, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Louisiana at Monroe, University of South Alabama, Texas State University, University of Texas at Arlington, and Troy University.
From the roaring of the crowds yelling, “GEORGIAAAAAAAAA…. SOUTHERNNNNNNN” to the hundreds of students sitting on the open field overlooking the football game anyone who has attended any home games knows exactly what atmosphere to expect every single time. Come to the tailgate; enjoy the game, party with the team afterwards; just make sure to join us in support of our first year in our new conference!!