By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride for Georgia Southern since they transitioned from the FCS to the FBS in 2014.

Their short-lived tenure on the FBS level reminds me of Darius Rucker’s music career (yes, I just heard Hootie & Blowfish 0n the radio and now I can’t stop thinking about how the Dolphins make him cry).

The inaugural season, in which they won the Sun Belt outright, was far more successful than anyone could have imagined; much like “Cracked Rear View Mirror”. The following seasons were basically like every other Hootie album that came after their debut album.

This current season, a redemption of sorts, is kind of like Rucker’s exploration into country music I guess.

Anyway, bad pop culture references aside, the Eagles are making another unexpected run at the Sun Belt, which gained steam after their home win over Appalachian State.

Even though the Mountaineers lost their starting quarterback on the first series, and their backups made Nathan Peterman look like Joe Montana, Georgia Southern completely dominated the game.

While you can’t look too much into all the turnovers Georgia Southern forced because of Appalachian’s quarterback situation, you can’t say the same about the other side of the ball.

Appalachian entered the game with one of the stingiest defenses in the country, which Georgia Southern promptly dominated upfront and ran all over them.

I’m not saying Georgia Southern is as good as Penn State, but as someone who has watched every App. St. game this year, I haven’t seen them be handled like that on defense all season, including the Penn State game.

With the Sun Belt’s new division alignment, and conference championship game, the next few weeks will be interesting. The big game for Georgia Southern is their November 10th matchup against Troy. If both teams win their upcoming games, the winner will take sole possession of first place within the East Division.

(The Louisiana Monroe game this weekend could be a sneaky one for Southern since it is positioned right in between the Appalachian and Troy games. Georgia Southern is the better team, but ULM is good enough to give them fits if the Eagles are looking ahead to Troy.)

If Georgia Southern beats Troy they’ll own the tiebreaker with both Troy and Appalachian State, with only Coastal Carolina and Georgia State remaining on their schedule; two teams they should defeat easily.

A loss would require Southern fans to root for Appalachian to beat Troy in the season finale, which is like asking a Georgia fan to pull for Florida to win, causing a three-way tie for the division title.

Of course, all of this would require each of those three teams to win their remaining games, outside of the ones I just outlined.

Saying a team “controls their own destiny” is one of the most clichéd sports lines there is, so I’ll simply make this statement: at this point Georgia Southern has the “authority to decide whether or not they will take advantage of the situation ordained to them by a higher power.”

Regardless of the outcome, the Eagles have begun re-staking their claim as one of the better programs within the Sun Belt Conference.

With Appalachian State and Troy both residing in the same division, having Georgia Southern back makes the East Division one of the most exciting and competitive ones in all of college football.