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2025 Sun Belt Football: Week 5 Preview
80 Plays26 days ago
Brian and Zeke return to talk over all the premier matchups in this week's Sun Belt slate, including Old Dominion taking on Liberty, Appalachian State facing off with Boise, and Georgia Southern facing off with James Madison in a Sun Belt East showdown.
Email questions to the show at warmweatherfans@gmail.com!
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Transcript
Introduction to Warm Weather Fans Podcast
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody, to Warm Weather Fans. This is Brian, ah once again joined by Zeke Palermo. We are going over week five in the Sun Belt. We've got a couple of interesting matchups on the slate here. Some that are less interesting but still deserve a bit of discussion.
Online Sports Games and Team Selection: Ethics Discussion
00:00:35
Speaker
But before we get into all that, Zeke, what's up?
00:00:39
Speaker
Not a whole lot. I do have a question for you before we get started. It's a little tangential. um how I know you play a little bit of games. You play college football, dabble in battle Madden from time to time. ah Do you play online ever, online head-to-head?
00:00:55
Speaker
Uh, more on NBA 2K than I do on the football game. The football games are really poorly designed a lot of the times. And what it is, is someone finds like a blitz or something that works and then they just run it.
00:01:11
Speaker
Like they find something that glitches and they just run it ad nauseum. And to me, I'm like, I don't have any interest in that. But when it's basket, like 2K, it's like, it's five on five. Like if my guy is sagging off and I hit a three,
00:01:24
Speaker
Like he can't, you know, he can do whatever he wants play wise, but it doesn't change the ultimate result. Whereas like, you know, if I'm playing NCAA or Madden, it's like my offensive lineman might just decide blocking is not really their bag, like in the middle of the play.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah. um i The same premise will apply here. where ah What are the ethics and the gentleman's agreements that we enter into when we enter these online arenas for head-to-head, this is not mutt, cut, my team, you know whatever derivative thereof.
00:01:58
Speaker
What are the ethics of picking your team?
00:02:03
Speaker
I don't know. Usually it's like if there's a super overpowered team, people, you can kind of tell who a person is based on the team they select because it's like, you know, let's say in Madden, someone's like, I'm taking the Eagles, like immediately you're like, oh, I see. You're just trying to cheese your way to a win-loss record. It's almost like Call of Duty where it's like,
00:02:26
Speaker
you know, when they had like, what was it? The, the double shotguns or whatever that were, people were just running around killing people with it. And it was like, Oh, you just found like an exploit that like, you're just going to keep exploiting. Like NBA is going through the same thing right now. Like seven, four players, you can make them so that they can have like a three point rating that is almost like Ray Allen level.
00:02:49
Speaker
And they can't be contested by shorter players. sure so So people are making guys that are 7'4", just shooting corner threes, and I've seen screenshots of guys scoring 200 points like in a 20-minute basketball game.
00:03:04
Speaker
Well, I have a confession then. but When I play online, this is for Madden, ah I do pick the Eagles. They fit my play style the best, um I believe. Yeah.
00:03:17
Speaker
But I can redeem myself because I picked Georgia Tech in ah and college football. Because okay for whatever reason in college football, you can't change, at least I don't think, you can't choose what playbook you pick when you go head-to-head.
00:03:29
Speaker
ah you You have to go with that teams. And so I like that. I like the, it's Old Dominion-esque to bring it back to our show. ah Very Q Power type ah run game. So that's my redemption. But, ah oops, I picked the Eagles.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah. I just meant more like when there is a really good team, like the 2019 chiefs or something. And you're like, you're like, you know, I'm taking the team with my homes and Tyreek and Kelsey all in their primes and like Chris Jones and all that. Like, I understand what I'm getting into. and it's like,
00:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, but like I can kind of tell like what kind of person you are, because like if you if you select, you know, an offbeat team like Georgia Tech, you're like, oh, this guy's clearly got like a play style and stuff like that versus you're like, oh, there's one team that has a really glitchy playbook that I can like, you know, I squeeze my defensive line and then no one blocks the edge rushers or something right crazy like that.
Parenting and Gaming Ethics
00:04:26
Speaker
ah Well, as we move from this conversation, you are recently a father, um ah not recently, father ah recently a father of a son or you know, your daughter may pick up the sports gene from you as well.
00:04:39
Speaker
ah When they begin playing sports games, you have the obligation when they are playing head to head with their friends offline or online. It's three randoms and then a suicide.
00:04:52
Speaker
yeah You go three random teams, you get to pick one of them, and then it's do or die if you don't like those three. That is a moral obligation. to Anyone who plays any sports game, again, with friends, has to oblige by. And if you don't, I think you are scum.
00:05:08
Speaker
Or if you are ah looking over at the person calling the play's hands and seeing what buttons they're pressing. Yeah, that's another one. No screen cheating, man. No.
00:05:19
Speaker
We're a podcast of morals. Let's talk about the
Boise State vs App State Analysis
00:05:21
Speaker
Sunbelt. um What's your game of the week? what What stands out to you from our slate? Yeah, so I'm going to go ah Boise State versus App State.
00:05:31
Speaker
And frankly, it's because a lot of the other matchups I'm looking at, I'm either like not really that interested in seeing another Sunbelt team play Liberty and probably beat Liberty in the process. ah Not really interested in, you know,
00:05:46
Speaker
uh, no offense. You're the game that you chose. Uh, not really that interested. And I think North Texas is going to beat South Alabama pretty handily. So it's like, when you go through all those games, Georgia Southern, Jamie's kind of the same deal.
00:05:58
Speaker
Uh, I'm like, I want to I want a game that's interesting stylistically. And I went with Boise versus app Boise, obviously lost their first game of the season to a pretty good South Florida team that we know now. Um, and,
00:06:11
Speaker
but they have uncovered a, an Ashton Janty type clone with Dylan Riley, who is currently 32 carries for the season and 314 yards. That's 9.8 yards per carry.
00:06:26
Speaker
Um, their running game is just nuts. And frankly, I'm like, i I guess it's the system now that we've seen, I guess, what we have out of Janty in the NFL. It's it's it it is the system that really powered his production. I mean, he was obviously good, but like, come on, nobody, nobody runs for like two 2,500 yards or whatever, without like a good offensive line and play calling and all that stuff.
00:06:53
Speaker
So, you know, at the last we saw them, AJ Swan kind of imploded through three interceptions against Southern Miss. Um, like i said, on the last episode, we had an app fan email us and say that that some fans with app actually think JJ Cole is a better player and fit for the team.
00:07:10
Speaker
and even said Billy Wiles was a better backup than, uh, Noah Gillen. So, they might be mismanaging the the quarterback position. That's something I would like to see, but I think this is a good kind of litmus test for them just to see kind of where they're at because the first two weeks they might've given us a little bit of fool's gold. And now this is kind of like the rubber match to like figure out like, is this team going like 500 ish or are we, are we elevating past that? And last week was a blip.
00:07:40
Speaker
ah Yeah. I think my concern is that as with, how Boise treated teams last year. Um, apps run game last we saw them was not world beating, um, against Southern Miss Jeffrey Pittman ran, uh, 39 yards on six carries Braxton went 27 on seven.
00:08:01
Speaker
You have a couple other guys reach like 15 on three or four carries. Um, they weren't giving up big, big plays, which I know is the big concern. Um, with, as we're now learning, I guess any Boise state running back.
00:08:13
Speaker
um But it it was consistent. It was consistent yardage. It was four or five, six yards a carry consistently. And that will kill you as a team. um I'm very excited to watch that game because i mean, Boise is again, if it's not appointment television um because of just kind of their stature within the college football framework, um if you know, they kick off at seven 30, um,
00:08:38
Speaker
If there's not much going on at 730, if it's 839 o'clock and I'm fishing for a game, I'm going to flip to this over, you know, another get we have Southern Miss versus Jacksonville State. I'm going to pick this one over that for sure.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah Who do you like in that one? I think I still like Boise. It's at it's in Boise on the you know Smurf turf.
00:09:04
Speaker
um i I am interested to see who goes out for app because it's like Swan left with an injury. Gillen was bad. Wiles showed a little bit of promise but only played very sparingly by the end of that game. And then J.J. Cole...
00:09:20
Speaker
who, like I said, we got that email about, I think he has like 18 pass attempts this year. And I don't even know that he's healthy enough to play. So I'm going to go with what I know, which is I think that Boise will be able to continue to run the ball.
Marshall vs Louisiana Preview
00:09:33
Speaker
Sure. ah The game I picked out, and as you rightfully said, is not a clash of titans by any means. It's Marshall at Louisiana um at 8 p.m. That's in Lafayette.
00:09:46
Speaker
I like this game because I think both teams have a lot to prove. Marshall ah with the win over Middle Tennessee last week and then East ah east Kentucky, eastern Eastern Kentucky the week prior is hot. And as I said in our ah kind of recap episode, this could be an inflection point for a team that, again, has Old Dominion in two weeks.
00:10:07
Speaker
So there's a ceiling on how hot they can get. um But this is a... A far better team than I anticipated. I expected Marshall to be in the basement, but it looks like they can be amongst the rest, especially in the relatively weak East this year.
00:10:24
Speaker
um We need to see Carlos Del Rio Wilson. Is he legit? I mean, going into last, he had a great game last week against Middle Tennessee, but he had nine completions on the year before that. So we need to see a larger sample size from him, and i'm going to be watching that.
00:10:38
Speaker
From a Louisiana perspective, the pressure's on. I don't know what Desiremo's timeline is, um but the clock is already ticking. ah the This is just not a great looking team. They have their own quarterback solvency problems, whereas Marshall, they just don't know what they have.
00:10:57
Speaker
ah Louisiana, they don't have anyone. Daniel Beal and Lynch Winfield just ain't going to cut it. um And they, again, if Louisiana is to do anything this year, which I really don't think they will at this point, um or if Desremo is to keep his job and not get replaced when but Billy Napier ultimately gets canned as well, like you have to turn a corner here to even save your job.
00:11:20
Speaker
Because a loss to Marshall, you then play James Madison. You play a Southern Miss team that is better than I anticipated. You play Troy, which jury's still out on. You get South Alabama jury's still out on.
00:11:31
Speaker
You get Texas State, which I'm not high on, but will beat Louisiana. Same thing with Arkansas. think at this point, you can confidently say Texas State and Southern Miss are better than Louisiana. Yeah, and so like this this has to be it right here for Louisiana. I think these are...
00:11:49
Speaker
both must win games from either side.
South Alabama vs North Texas Preview
00:11:51
Speaker
um And that's why i like this game. All right. um So let's go through some of the rest of the slate here.
00:11:59
Speaker
ah Starting at noon, we got South Alabama traveling to Denton, Texas to take on North Texas, who's a four, no team at this point. um South Alabama still licking their wounds from getting killed at the hands of, of iffy coastal Carolina team last week.
00:12:16
Speaker
ah North Texas is a 12 and a half point favorite. Yeah. I, i Again, I'd like to almost see what we have in Zach Pyron if I'm a but South Alabama fan. like I'm like, show me something else.
00:12:29
Speaker
like i just I don't know if ah Bishop Davenport is there as a player yet. Still pretty young. i think maybe he could probably use the rest of the season or whatnot to learn and kind of sit and observe rather than try to start 12 games.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, this is a North Texas team that at 4-0, I'm not fully convinced by. Wins over ah Lamar, west michigan Western Michigan, ah Washington State and Army. you know That's not a slate of Titans that they have downed.
00:13:03
Speaker
um But i mean if you look at the rest of the kind of ah their schedule, it's not like it gets any tougher for them. So this is a team that's going to finish with 9, possibly 10. Who knows if the chips fall their way, maybe they win out.
00:13:15
Speaker
they they'd be. um So ah yeah, it's up to Bishop Davenport to again, turn a corner or, you know, get off the can. 130 on ESPN plus Georgia Southern is traveling to Harrisonburg to take on JMU. ah JMU is a 16 and a half point favorite.
00:13:34
Speaker
I would like to go ahead and tell everybody my official pick will be JMU minus
JMU vs Georgia Southern Predictions
00:13:40
Speaker
16 and a half. I think, the way that Georgia Southern's defense plays, Jamie will essentially be able to write their final score in on the card and just hand it to the ref and Georgia Southern's like, thank you for ah sparing us this indignity of, of the whipping you were about to give us.
00:13:56
Speaker
I gave this stat when I previewed ah Georgia Southern's team in the preseason. The last time that Georgia Southern and Jamie played a game and the margin of victory was fewer than seven points, 1991.
00:14:08
Speaker
ninety ninety one it was a three point game. Every other game has been a touchdown or more, um, including two years ago, Jamie beat Georgia Southern 41 to 13. And then last year, ah Georgia Southern beat them 28, 14 in Statesboro. So who basically whoever wins hold serve and they usually just pound the other team into submission. And then the next year it just flips.
00:14:32
Speaker
Sure. Uh, yeah, I like Jamie. I think they're by far the best team in the conference this year. um And there's no real other way to cut it, especially if Georgia Southern starts to the way they did against Maine, which was just slow and very poor.
00:14:46
Speaker
It's how they start like every week. They don't start hot ever. Right. And they certainly don't finish hot either. um So I think this could get pretty lopsided pretty quickly.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yep. ah Three o'clock here, Arkansas State, again, licking their wounds as well after losing to Kennesaw, travels to Monroe to take on a UL Monroe team that looked pretty good against UTEP.
Arkansas State vs UL Monroe Analysis
00:15:14
Speaker
I think UL Monroe is going win this game. Arkansas State, if they're still, if if Rucker can't get open or healthy or what whatever his problem is, and then Cross is also out,
00:15:28
Speaker
There's not a lot to like for me with Arkansas State. So I think Ewell Monroe will be able to keep them off the scoreboard enough to to beat the Red Wolves. Yeah, and this is an Arkansas State team that we have said and will continue to say doesn't play by any means really good defense, um which benefits a team like ah ULM that has some quarterback questions. Aiden Armenta really...
00:15:52
Speaker
He's not cutting it. He's doing what ah we saw Troy quarterbacks in the past do. Actually, some pretty good Troy quarterbacks in the past do where it was like, all right, i need you know we need you to throw the ball 15 times and then hand it off the rest of the way. So um I think that bodes really well for you, LM.
00:16:08
Speaker
um ah But as we talked about in the recaps ah from last week, how much of this is real from the Warhawks and how much of this is a facade, jury's still out.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yep. Six o'clock here. ah Liberty is coming off of that shellacking at the hands of JMU 31 to 13. They are traveling to Norfolk to take on Old Dominion.
Old Dominion vs Liberty Expectations
00:16:33
Speaker
I like Old Dominion in this game, but a lot closer than the 18 point margin that JMU had. I think JMU is a much more complete team than Old Dominion is.
00:16:44
Speaker
But for me, I want to continue to see those ancillary offensive pieces continue to help out Colton Joseph because we got to a whiff of that ah when they beat Virginia Tech when we last saw them.
00:16:58
Speaker
But again, I said this on the last episode, my whole thing with them is consistency. If they can't show up on a weekly basis, it's it's kind of like you know flipping a coin and hoping it lands on heads five times in a row. like The chances of that are low.
00:17:13
Speaker
So yeah, I want to see them continue to roll. They played Ethan Vasco last year. They knew they kind of know what to expect out of him. So yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've been i've beat up on Old Dominion for the past two years pretty harshly.
00:17:27
Speaker
um and i But with a guy like Colton Joseph, I want to be wrong. I want this to be a team that... is able to benefit from a guy that is like dynamic as athletic, as good of a two dual threat quarterback as he is without putting him in that, ah you know, in the situation where it it is all him and that, you know, leave him out to dry. You make his stats look a lot emptier than they actually should be.
00:17:56
Speaker
um So I want to be wrong about that. And, um, i I said it after the Virginia Tech game that I need i need another. ah We had the FCS win. You get Virginia Tech's coach practically fired. um No, he was. he was i mean, yeah, he he was fired.
00:18:11
Speaker
ah You get the Virginia Tech coach fired. So I need to see you do it again. um Liberty is not... the world's greatest step up. But if you do that to three teams in a row, I'm going to start believing in these guys that are around Colton Joseph um and start believing that they can actually do things. Traequan Jones, Ja'Cory Thomas, these types of guys.
00:18:30
Speaker
um so But I like Old Dominion by a fair bit here. Okay. 7 p.m. here. Jacksonville State is traveling to Hattiesburg to take on Southern Miss.
Southern Miss vs Jacksonville State Preview
00:18:41
Speaker
ah I like Southern Miss one in this one pretty comfortably, even barring the the red zone struggles that we discussed on the last episode. yeah I saw Jacksonville State up close and personal.
00:18:53
Speaker
They do not play defense. And so it feels like if you can get a couple of stops against them, like they – They just have no answers defensively. they didn't you know Georgia Southern is not exactly the best offense I've ever seen.
00:19:06
Speaker
They put up 41, and it looked fairly comfortable. i mean There was only a little bit there where it was like, oh, I don't know. it was It was pretty easy. and Southern Miss, if they can get three, four stops in this game, they could probably win by two scores. ah This game kicks at seven, which...
00:19:25
Speaker
Works really well for me. Doesn't work well for Charles Huff. I'm watching every red zone snap, dude. ah If you missed our recap episode, which I've heralded back to a couple times today, watch it.
00:19:38
Speaker
Because I have... i have become all of a sudden of the opinion that Charles Huff may be failing at one of the most fundamental parts of football. And maybe it's not him. Maybe it's his coordinators, but the, he has a problem in the red zone that extends far beyond his time at Southern Miss. It it extends through his entire tenure at Marshall.
00:19:59
Speaker
And so again, I can feel myself getting hot because like this this is, I feel like I've been lied to about Charles ho and like what that team was last year. Um,
00:20:11
Speaker
so Can I suggest maybe a ah good tweet for you to send out? What's that? Have you noticed on... ah You've been on Twitter recently, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you noticed the dokes meme from Dexter where he's like standing there and it's like, i I know that blah, blah, blah is bad, but I can't prove it yet.
00:20:31
Speaker
You need to do send something like that out and be like, so... I feel like Charles Huff is a bad coach for red zone offenses. I just can't prove it yet. Like that needs to be the tweet or something that goes out along with the stat. And you're like, here's the thing.
00:20:47
Speaker
It's been proven. Look, the numbers do not lie. yeah ah Yeah, that's the slate. It's a pretty
Conference Play and Team Readiness
00:20:54
Speaker
quick week. We're getting into conference play. Most of the teams playing conference opponents. um We get to see these. We've got a little taste of We see the injury reports now every week, which is cool.
00:21:04
Speaker
um It helps us a lot because, I mean, frankly, otherwise injuries go unreported um at these programs. It's kind wild like even in the Sun Belt, that level of gambling and everything that goes into this, you would think they would be...
00:21:20
Speaker
like NFL level, like, no, we need to have the inactive lists or like whatever. Like you can't just, you know, tell the announcer, which I've watched a lot of games where the team would just tell the announcer and it wouldn't be available anywhere online. And then all of a sudden it would just be like, Aiden Armenta's out today, blah blah, blah. And it's like,
00:21:41
Speaker
did they have to report that anybody's like, no. And nobody really asked because nobody thought to ask or whatever. And it's like, okay, well, those things would be interesting to know, you know, 90 minutes before game time, the way that you do in the NFL. Yeah.
00:21:55
Speaker
I mean, we're preaching to the choir, but care about your local G5 team. Care about your local FCS team. ah Support your local colleges.
Closing and Contact Information
00:22:04
Speaker
You can find me on Twitter, at Zeke Palermo, Z-E-K-E-P-A-L-E-R-M-O.
00:22:09
Speaker
We'll be on Charles Watch, Hate Watch. um Because again, i more than anything, feel betrayed. um Because I guess I just missed this about him. And it really, really changes my outlook on him. um So keep an eye out there for the expose of Charles Huff.
00:22:26
Speaker
ah ah As always, you can follow the show on X at warm weather fans. Feel free to email us warm weather fans at gmail.com. You can find me on X Brian stone at watch the stone.
00:22:37
Speaker
We will be back next week to break down all of these games that we just previewed. This has been another edition of warm weather fans.