Around the Dog Park: Louisiana Monroe helps rival Lafayette in name controversy

Around the Dog Park is our daily round up of G5 football news around the internet. Feel free to submit any news we may have missed in the comments section.

American

• We hinted at this a while back but UConn appears to be seriously contemplating a return back to the Big East.

Then again maybe not. I’m sure there will be a lot more news on this in the coming months.

• If UConn does bolt back to the Big East they would still need a place for football and would probably prefer to keep football in the AAC. Our USF friends at the Daily Stampede says no chance.
• East Carolina received a large donation to aid stadium renovations.
• AAC is sending 18 players to the NFL Combine.

Independents

• Fenway Park put in a bid to host Army-Navy game in 2018. Yankee stadium also put in a bid. Thoughts?

Conference USA

• C-USA will be sending 11 players to the NFL Combine.
• One of the 11 players was Old Dominion’s Zach Pascal. Pascal’s invite gave ODU their first ever player to receive an invite to the event.

Sun Belt

• UL-Lafayette has been fighting to change their brand with other Louisiana state schools and received help from rival Louisiana-Monroe in the process. Why UL-Monroe is helping UL-Lafayette is beyond me but I’m sure La Tech and LSU fans don’t appreciate the Cajuns trying to get the LA abbreviation.
• Sun Belt sent five players to the NFL combine.
• Bill Connelly previews Idaho for the final time as a Sun Belt member. He thinks Idaho is going to be hard pressed to replicate last year’s success due to their schedule. Here’s an excerpt below.

Among other things, a 4-0 record in one-possession games is hard to replicate, especially with Rehkow and the rare offensive big-play guys gone. But even if you think of Idaho as more of a seven-win team in 2016, that bar might also be hard to clear with this schedule.

S&P+ is a little bearish on Idaho because the Vandals don't stand out well in recent recruiting (deep into the 120s) or returning production (a below-average 50 percent) and because 2016 was a single successful season. And with a conservative projection, S&P+ basically sees one likely win, four likely losses, and seven games that range between 36 and 59 percent win probability.

• Try to make time for an awesome edition of PAPN as Steven Godfrey and Bill talked about the Sun Belt preview series, Georgia Southern tradition and Georgia State’s potential.