Sun Belt Football Media Days main stage, broadcast schedule announced

Tuesday – 9:30 a.m. CT ESPN+ | 1:30 p.m. CT ESPN+
Wednesday – 9:30 a.m. CT ESPN+ | 1:30 p.m. CT ESPN+

NEW ORLEANS — Sun Belt Football Media Days on Tuesday, July 25, and Wednesday, July 26, will officially kick off the 2023 Sun Belt football season.

For the third-straight year, the event will be held at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel in downtown New Orleans, La., and will be broadcast nationwide on ESPN+.

Two new head coaches—Tim Beck of Coastal Carolina and G.J. Kinne of Texas State—will attend Sun Belt Football Media Days ahead of their first seasons in the conference.

The 2022 campaign—the conference’s first as a 14-team football league—was a banner year for the Sun Belt, which defeated four autonomy five programs, hosted ESPN’s College GameDay for the second time in conference history and produced a conference-record seven Bowl Season participants—tied for the most among non-autonomy conferences and trailing only the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12.

Three of the conference’s victories over autonomy five programs came on a statement Saturday in Week 2, when the Sun Belt became the first non-autonomy conference to knock off multiple Top 10-ranked opponents on the same day in nearly two decades (Sept. 20, 2003).

On the heels of these victories, the conference launched its Sun Belt Rising campaign, which featured in Times Square leading into College GameDay, Los Angeles during CFP week, each of the conference’s seven bowl markets during Bowl Season and each of the conference’s 14 institutional markets during the 2022 campaign.

The conference was home to the last two unbeaten teams and the last one-loss team from a non-autonomy conference in 2022 and was the lone non-autonomy conference to have multiple teams reach 10 wins during the regular season. No. 24 Troy (12-2) finished the year as 1-of-2 two-loss teams from non-autonomy conferences, alongside New Year’s Six representative No. 16 Tulane (12-2).

The Hercules Tires Sun Belt Football Championship Game—which Troy won 45-26 over Coastal Carolina to claim its conference record seventh Sun Belt title—was the lone conference championship game to feature a pair of teams with two-or-fewer losses in 2022. Sun Belt champion and No. 24-ranked Troy also proved victorious in the Duluth Trading Cure Bowl—the only bowl game to feature a pair of conference champions in 2022—defeating Conference USA champion and No. 25 UTSA, 18-12.

Sun Belt West Division programs—Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Texas State and Troy—will participate in Sun Belt Football Media Days on Tuesday, July 25.

Sun Belt East Division programs—App State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison, Marshall and Old Dominion—will appear on Wednesday, July 26.

The full list of media days attendees—the head coach and two student-athletes from each football program—and schedule is listed below.

Heading into the 2023 season, the Sun Belt continues to lead the FBS with a .614 bowl winning percentage since the dawn of the College Football Playoff era in 2014.

For exclusive Sun Belt football content on game days and throughout the year, follow @SunBeltFB on Twitter.

Tuesday, July 25
10:00 a.m.
Commissioner Keith Gill, State of the Conference

10:30 a.m.
Troy
Jon Sumrall (Head Coach)
Clayton Ollendieck (Sr., TE – Cresco, Iowa)
Reddy Steward (Sr., CB – Decatur, Ala.)

11:00 a.m.
Arkansas State
Butch Jones (Head Coach)
Justin Parks (Jr., S – Gardendale, Ala.)
Melique Straker (Sr., LB – Brampton, Ontario, Canada)

11:30 a.m.
ULM
Terry Bowden (Head Coach)
Jiya Wright (Sr., QB – Fort Wayne, Ind.)
Adin Huntington (Jr., DL – Stafford, Va.)

12:00 p.m.
Lunch

1:30 p.m.
Texas State
GJ Kinne (Head Coach)
Nash Jones (Jr., OL – Nacogdoches, Texas)
Tory Spears (RS Sr., S – Houston, Texas)

2:00 p.m.
South Alabama
Kane Wommack (Head Coach)
Carter Bradley (Sr., QB – Jacksonville, Fla.)
Yam Banks (Jr., S – Ridgeland, Miss.)

2:30 p.m.
Louisiana
Michael Desormeaux (Head Coach)
Neal Johnson (Sr., TE – Mesquite, Texas)
K.C. Ossai (Jr., LB – Conroe, Texas)

3:00 p.m.
Southern Miss
Will Hall (Head Coach)
Cole Cavallo (RS Sr., TE – Slidell, La.)
Jay Stanley (Sr., S – Greenwood, Miss.)

Wednesday, July 26
10:00 a.m.
John McDaid, Coordinator of Football Officials

10:30 a.m.
Marshall
Charles Huff (Head Coach)
Cam Fancher (RS So., QB – Huber Heights, Ohio)
Owen Porter (RS Sr., DL – Huntington, W.Va.)

11:00 a.m.
Old Dominion
Ricky Rahne (Head Coach)
Javon Harvey (RS Jr., WR – Norfolk, Va.)
Jason Henderson (Jr., LB – Dingmans Ferry, Pa.)

11:30 a.m.
Georgia Southern
Clay Helton (Head Coach)
Khaleb Hood (5th Yr., WR – McDonough, Ga.)
Marques Watson-Trent (RS Jr., LB – Beaver Falls, Pa.)

12:00 p.m.
Lunch

1:30 p.m.
James Madison
Curt Cignetti (Head Coach)
Nick Kidwell (RS Sr., OL – Knoxville, Md.)
James Carpenter (RS Jr., DL – Roanoke, Va.)

2:00 p.m.
App State
Shawn Clark (Head Coach)
Isaiah Helms (Sr., OL – Hudson, N.C.)
Nick Ross (Sr., S – Marietta, Ga.)

2:30 p.m.
Georgia State
Shawn Elliott (Head Coach)
Darren Grainger (RS Sr., QB – Conway, S.C.)
Bryquice Brown (RS Sr., CB – Dorchester, Mass.)

3:00 p.m.
Coastal Carolina
Tim Beck (Head Coach)
Grayson McCall (RS Sr., QB – Indian Trail, N.C.)
JT Killen (RS Sr., LB – Lake Wylie, S.C.)

All Times CT

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