The Sun Belt’s Saturday schedules are as slim as they come right now, with Tuesday games in consecutive weeks and a couple more teams on byes. We’ll shoot for an in-depth preview of the Tuesday action on Tuesday, so now we’ll look at what we do have for Saturday.
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Florida International (0-1) at Western Kentucky (0-0)- WKU has gotten knocked around good in the out of conference slate, but the season starts all over again on Saturday. FIU is also out to an awful start, so we have a combined zero wins in eight games here. FIU’s margins are steadily getting smaller, while WKU hasn’t shown the progress that they must be hoping for. Either way, it’s very possible that the win that somebody earns here will be their only one.
North Texas (0-1) at Louisiana Lafayette (0-0)- North Texas’ season started with a lot of promise, beating Ball State in week one, then a close OT loss to Ohio in week two. It really looked like they were a team on the rise after a rough go last season. A blowout loss to Alabama seems to have thrown them off the track, and then Middle Tennessee State came in and kicked them around in week four. We will now find out if they were able to refocus during their bye week, or if the negative momentum is going to be carrying on.
Lafayette can relate to fading after a fast start, but they’ve faced much better competition than North Texas has, for the most part. They beat their 1-AA team handily in the opener, then shocked Kansas State in week two. Then came losses to LSU and Nebraska by a combined 84-3, leading into their bye week. Ultimately, I think they’re the favorite this weekend, but this game may have a lot to do with which team has it together mentally after a string of tough losses on both sides.