Georgia Southern was picked as the favorite for 2015 in the Sun Belt Conference in the voting by the head coaches.
The Eagles (9-3, 8-0) won the title a year ago under head coach Willie Fritz, who looks to duplicate that feat in his second season at the school.
Louisiana-Lafayette (9-4, 7-1) is in the second spot with Arkansas State (7-6, 5-3), Appalachian State (7-5, 6-2) and Texas State (7-5, 5-3) rounding out the top five in the pre-season poll.
The rest of teams in the conference are expected to finish in the following order: South Alabama (6-7, 5-3), Louisiana-Monroe (4-8, 3-5), Troy (3-9, 3-5), Georgia State (1-11, 0-8), Mew Mexico State (2-10, 1-7) and Idaho (1-10, 1-7).
Georgia Southern’s offense led the Sun Belt in scoring at 39.1 points per game last season. With junior quarterback Kevin Ellison and junior running back Matt Breida, the Eagles have two players back who led that group. Breida led the conference with 1,485 yards on the ground with 17 scores to earn a place on the All-Sun Belt First Team. Ellison was a second-team all-conference performer with 1,096 yards rushing and 1,001 passing yards.
Elijah McGuire, who was last year’s conference player of the year, returns to Louisiana-Lafayette. The junior running back topped the Sun Belt with 1,848 all-purpose yards. He rushed for 1,264 yards and led the Ragin’ Cajuns with 45 receptions.
Other Impact Players in the Sun Belt: Appalachian State: Marcus Cox, Doug Middleton. Arkansas State: Fredi Knighten, Rocky Hayes, J.D. McKissic, Chris Stone. Georgia Southern: Matt Dobson. Georgia State: Donavan Harden, Joseph Peterson, Joel Ruiz. Idaho: Marc Millan, Austin Rehkow. Louisiana-Lafayette: Mykhael Quave. Louisiana-Monroe: Rashon Ceaser, Gerrand Johnson, Hunter Kissinger, Mitch Lane. New Mexico State: Rodney Butler, Teldrick Morgan, Larry Rose III. South Alabama: Cody Clements, Chris May. Texas State: Adrian Bellard, Tyler Jones, David Mims, Robert Lowe. Troy: Montres Kitchens, Tyler Roberts.
Editor’s note: Quotes, photos and logos courtesy of CollegePressBox.com.