After beginning Sun Belt play with a pair of East Division matchups, Texas State draws Troy as its first West Division opponent.
This season will be the Trojans’ first in the West, making the move after the conference added James Madison and Old Dominion, both from Virginia, and Marshall from West Virginia. Troy was a force to be reckoned with a few years ago, posting three consecutive 10-win seasons under former head coach Neal Brown from 2016-18, peaking with a co-Sun Belt title shared with App State in 2017. The program fell off when Brown left for the West Virginia job, producing three consecutive five-win seasons with Chip Lindsey at the helm.
Lindsey was fired with one week left in the 2021 regular season and was replaced by Jon Sumrall, who previously served as Brown’s associate head coach and special teams coordinator from 2015-17 and was most recently a co-defensive coordinator at Kentucky last year. Sumrall will be tasked with getting the program back on track.
