Going into Saturday, the Sun Belt’s historical record against the Big 12 was a humbling 6-70.
Today, that record is 9-70. Remarkably, none of Saturday’s 3 Sun Belt upsets were fluky. One common denominator: poor offensive line play (with the exception of Kansas’ 2nd half).
Kansas State clearly lost the line of scrimmage in their 35-31 loss to Arkansas State – not a surprising development as their veteran offensive line of 2019 graduated. Only Red Wolf turnovers kept the game close. The Wildcats also found out they have nobody capable of covering the Red Wolves’ man-child receiver, Jonathan Adams Jr.
Iowa State’s defense deserved to win as they did an excellent job of containing Louisiana’s vaunted ground game. The Rajun Cajuns were limited to 272 yards of total offense. However, Louisiana had a kickoff return TD and a punt return TD to spell the difference in the game. Iowa State clearly has a lack of offensive playmakers. Brock Purdy played,arguably, his worst game as a Cyclone, aided and abetted by a leaky offensive line.
Les Miles had to be dismayed at the halftime score in Lawrence against an unheralded Coastal Carolina team: 28-3. While the Chanticleers’ found a quarterback in surprise starter, Grayson McCall, Coastal Carolina is not to be confused with Appalachian State (the reigning Sun Belt champ). To Kansas’ credit, the towel was not thrown in, as the Jayhawks played much better in the 2nd half. Still, two home losses to the Chanticleers in 12 months is not the kickstart badly needed by Miles and the program.
Iowa State and K-State both have raucous fan support, negated as one of the casualties of the pandemic. I suspect that at least one of those losses would have been prevented in “normal” times. Which gets us to the inherent unfairness of college football’s caste system. The Sun Belt’s horrendous 9-70 record is due, in part, to its has to play virtually all games against the Power 5 on the road. Two of the few times that the Big 12 visited current Sun Belt teams resulted in horror shows for the visitor. Prior to Louisiana’s upset of ISU, their only previous win over a Top 25 team was when they hosted and stunned Texas A&M, 29-22, in 1996 (In one of the nastiest revenge paybacks ever, A&M shellacked Louisiana, 66-0, in their 1997 rematch). In 2004, Troy hosted a Brad Smith-led Missouri squad and prevailed, 24-14.
As horrific as Saturday was for the Big 12, their collective pratfall was almost worse. Easily the best QB that most have never heard of, Bailey Zappe of Houston Baptist, came so close to pulling off a shocker in Lubbock. Zappe, 2019’s all-Southland Conference QB, led a furious 2nd half rally only to have their 2-point conversion fail in a 35-33 thriller at Texas Tech. When Zappe threw for 480 yards against North Texas last week, that was mere prelude for his 567 passing yards against the shell-shocked Red Raiders.
College football always delivers — even during pandemics. When new heroes like Adams Jr. and Zappe emerge, such welcome emergence is as inevitable as spring flowers.