Jeremy Harper Appalachian State, Arkansas State Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Cajuns, Coastal Carolina, Football, G5, Georgia Southern Eagles, Georgia State Panthers, James Madison University, Louisiana, Marshall, Old Dominion, Red Wolves, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Sun Belt, Texas State, Track & Field, Troy, Troy Trojans, ULM, Women's Sport

The Sun Belt should make a play for Arizona State. (And Army and Wake Forest, while we’re at it.)

The Power Five can’t get their shit together, or even play nicely with each other, and now it’s up to the Sun Belt to clean up the mess. Or, maybe we can just clean up, if we’re bargain hunting here.

There are some cautious circles who would submit that the Sun Belt – built on regional rivalry and a nicely self-contained footprint – should stand-pat on any talk of expansion and let the big-coffered malcontents self destruct. (For reals, Power Five, you had a pretty good thing going, but now every step you take is dictated by radioactive greed.) But with a toxically bored Florida State looking to annihilate the ACC, and the Big 10 pretending not to be actively destroying the PAC-12, Commissioner Keith Gill needs to pick up some bargains and add them to the Sun Belt Portfolio.

For example, nobody seems to want Arizona State, a university with an enrollment of 75,000 and an athletic budget of $26.M. The Sun Devils could use some juice – they finished with just three football wins last season and finished near the bottom of the conference standing for hoops, too. A change of scenery would do Arizona State well – and would increase the number of ASUs for the Sun Belt to three. For the record, Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson feels like the Sun Devils are “in a good place” whatever that means. Surely Anderson isn’t wild about becoming a broadcast property of Apple TV?

To those who fret that adding Arizona State would somehow sully the Sun Belt’s near-perfect footprint, bear in mind that ASU is 400 miles closer to Texas State than Old Dominion and is only 200 miles farther from SBC Western Division rival Troy. Sure, the occasional trip between Tempe and Norfolk (2,330 miles) may sound daunting, but in a world where Rutgers and USC are conference foes, what’s a couple thousand miles between rivals?

Oh yeah, grab Army and Wake Forest, too.

Army is practically a honorary member of the Sun Belt, playing multiple SBC football opponents nearly every season. Why not bring them into the fold? The Sun Belt could use a military presence, plus that Army/Navy exposure would do the conference well.

Why Wake Forest? Why not Wake Forest. Would the ACC miss the Deacons? Not as much as the Sun Belt would welcome them, and the Demon Deacon would provide a mascot rival for Appalachian State’s Yosef.

This is free advice, Commissioner Keith Gill.