The Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game is an annual

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

game that determines the season champion of the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

(SBC). The game is played between the SBC regular-season divisional champions from the East and West divisions. First contested in 2018, the game is typically played on the first Saturday of December. The current champion is the

Troy Trojans The Troy Trojans are the sports teams of Troy University. They began playing in the NCAA's Division I-A in 2001, became a football only member of the Sun Belt Conference in 2004, and joined that conference for all other sports in 2005. Troy Univer ...

History

In 1987, the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

(NCAA) approved a proposal made by two Division II conferences that allowed any conference with 12 football members to split into divisions and stage a championship game between the divisional winners, with that game not counting against NCAA limits on regular-season contests. However, the rule would not see its first use until 1992, when the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

, which had added

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

and

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

the previous year, launched its title game. In early 2016, NCAA legislation was passed that largely deregulated FBS conference championship games, allowing a conference with fewer than 12 teams to stage a championship game that featured either (1) the top two teams at the end of a full round-robin conference schedule, or (2) the winners of each of two divisions, with each team playing a full round-robin schedule within its division. Several months later, the Sun Belt Conference announced that they would be introducing a football championship game starting in the 2018 season. In 2017, the conference announced the two divisions that teams would compete in, with division winners qualifying for the championship game. As the conference would have 10 teams competing in football in the 2018 season, East and West divisions were created with five teams each, with the championship game to be played at the home stadium of the team with the best

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

ranking. If no teams are ranked in the CFP selection committee, the conference will determine home field using a formula based on six computer ratings that were used in the old

Bowl Championship Series The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including ...

standings. Unlike the conference's sports of baseball and volleyball, which are also divided into divisions, the

Jaguars The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the thi ...

South Alabama South Alabama is the various parts of southern Alabama. Although it is not a strictly defined geographic region, it generally includes all Alabama counties south of the Black Belt. In that view, ''South Alabama'' consists of just the two counties ...

competed in the West division rather than the East. In 2018,

Appalachian State Appalachian State University (; Appalachian, App State, App, or ASU) is a public university in Boone, North Carolina. It was founded as a teachers college in 1899 by brothers B. B. and D. D. Dougherty and the latter's wife, Lillie Shull Dough ...

qualified as the East division team, as they had defeated

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in prese ...

head-to-head, with both teams finishing the regular season with 7–1 conference records.

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

qualified as the West division team, as they had defeated

Arkansas State Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage l ...

head-to-head, with both teams finishing the regular season with 5–3 conference records. In the inaugural championship game, Appalachian State defeated Louisiana, 30–19. The 2019 game was a rematch of the same teams, and again saw

defeat

, this time by a score of 45–38. The 2020 championship game, set to feature

Coastal Carolina Coastal Carolina University (CCU or Coastal) is a public university in Conway, South Carolina. Founded in 1954 as Coastal Carolina Junior College, and later joining the University of South Carolina System as USC Coastal Carolina, it became an in ...

and

, was canceled due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

effects within the Coastal Carolina program. As a result, the teams were declared co-champions for the 2020 season. The 2021 game saw

and

in the title game for the third time; however, unlike their prior two championship meetings at

Kidd Brewer Stadium Kidd Brewer Stadium is a 30,000-seat multi-purpose stadium located in Boone, North Carolina. Nicknamed "The Rock," the stadium is the home of the Appalachian State Mountaineers football team. Kidd Brewer stands above sea level. The Mountaineers b ...

, Louisiana won over Appalachian State 24–16 at

Cajun Field Cajun Field is a football stadium located on the South Campus of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the city of Lafayette, Louisiana. Nicknamed The Swamp, it is the home field of Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns athletics. Cajun Field is primaril ...

for their first outright Sun Belt Conference title. With the addition of four new members in 2022—

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia * Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Islands * Marshall Islands, an i ...

Old Dominion Old Dominion most commonly refers to: *The Old Dominion, a nickname for the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia ** Colony of Virginia *Old Dominion University, a public university in Norfolk, Virginia **Old Dominion Monarchs, the athletic teams represe ...

, and

Southern Miss The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, ma ...

—the SBC adopted a new alignment for all divisional sports, with the new dividing line being the Alabama–Georgia border. Accordingly, James Madison, Marshall, and Old Dominion joined the East Division, with Southern Miss joining the West Division. Troy moved from the East to the West.

Results by year

Below are the results from all Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Games played. The winning team appears in bold font, on a background of their primary team color. Rankings are from the

committee ranking released prior to the game. † The 2020 game was canceled by Coastal Carolina due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

issues.

Results by team

Georgia Southern Georgia Southern University (GS or Georgia Southern) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. The flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in Hin ...

Georgia State Georgia state or ''variation'', may refer to: Primarily * Georgia State University ("State", "Georgia State"), a state university * Georgia (U.S. state) ("Georgia state"), a state of the United States of America Sports * sports teams of Georgia St ...

, Louisiana–Monroe,

, and

Texas State Texas State University is a public research university in San Marcos, Texas. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has grown to the second largest university in the Greater Austin metropolitan area and the fifth largest university ...

have yet to earn a Sun Belt Football Championship Game bid. James Madison, Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss played their first SBC seasons in 2022.

References

{{NCAA Division I FBS conference championship game navbox Sun Belt Conference football 2018 establishments in the United States Recurring sporting events established in 2018

History

Results by year

Results by team

See also

References