When the Sun Belt holds its football media days Monday and Tuesday, three coaches will be making their first appearance.
Two others will be making their second, as the nine-team conference has seen five coaching changes in the last two seasons.
Louisiana-Lafayette , North Texas and Arkansas State have new coaches as they try and get their dormant programs back into the title hunt and bowl picture.
And Louisiana-Monroe and Western Kentucky have second-year coaches.
It's no surprise that the four teams that have not changed coaches have won or shared the Sun Belt title in the last four seasons, while the five that have had been out of contention.
Howard Schnellenberger is starting his 11th season at FAU. The Owls won the Sun Belt in 2007, but have struggled since then, and finished 4-8 last season.
Schnellenberger is in the last year of his current contract, and FAU Athletic Director Craig Angelos said he will not discuss Schnellenberger's until after the season.
Here's the Sun Belt coaching breakdown, starting with the newest faces:
Freeze was promoted to head coach after serving one season as the Red Wolves offensive coordinator. But it was quite a season, as ASU offense set nine records: Total plays (856), first downs (262), pass attempts (438), pass completions (266), completion percentage (.607), passing yards (3,057), passing yards per game (254.8) and passing touchdowns (23).
Freeze's offense uses a no-huddle, quick-snap scheme that minimizes the time between plays to maximize the number of plays. Under Freeze, the ASU offensive averaged 403.4 yards per game.
This is Freeze's second head coaching job. He spent two years at Lumbuth University (2008-09), an NAIA school, and had a 20-5 record.
Freeze replaces Steve Roberts, who never had a winning season in his eight years at ASU. The highlight of his tenure was 2005, when ASU went 5-2 in the Sun Belt to share the title and went to the New Orleans Bowl.
McCarney is getting his second chance as head coach. His first stint was a long one, as he spent 11 seasons at Iowa State, where he went 56-85 from 1995 to 2006.
McCarney was then an assistant at South Florida for one season before becoming defensive line coach at Florida from 2008 to 2010 under Urban Meyer .
McCarney inherits a North Texas program in disarray after a rocky three-plus seasons under Todd Dodge. The Mean Green went 6-37 under Dodge, who had been a successful high school coach in nearby Southlake Carroll before coming to North Texas.
North Texas is opening a new stadium this fall, and there is pressure to get back to where they were from 2001 to 2004, which was Sun Belt champions.
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