2017-18 Commissioner's List | 2017-18 Academic Honor Roll

ARLINGTON, Texas - The Sun Belt Conference released the 2017-18 academic awards featuring more than 2,000 student-athletes on the SBC Commissioner's List and Academic Honor Roll, announced by the league office on Thursday. The SBC announced 1,036 student-athletes on the Commissioner's List, while 987 were named to the Academic Honor Roll. 

UTA featured 113 student-athletes on the academic awards list with 62 featured on the league's Academic Honor Roll and 51 on the prestigious Commissioner's List. 

"It is a testament of our student-athletes and the hard work that they put into their work in the classroom setting," UTA Director of Athletics Jim Baker said. "We pride ourselves on having high academic standards across our 15 Division I sports, and our coaches do a tremendous job in putting the student first in student-athlete. Our academic team has strived to provide the best services for our student-athletes here at UT Arlington, and the recognition by the Sun Belt only goes to show the hard work that is put in at UTA."

The Commissioner's List, featuring students with a 3.5 grade point average or better for the last academic year, saw baseball and men's track and field lead the way with eight student-athletes apiece being features on the list. The honor roll, showcasing students with a 3.0 to 3.49 GPA, saw a UTA best 17 student-athletes named to the SBC Honor Roll. 

Coastal Carolina had the highest number of honorees with 216 student-athletes between the two lists (130 on the Commissioner's List and 86 on the Academic Honor Roll). Appalachian State and Arkansas State tied for the second most student-athletes between the two lists with 210 total.

Women's soccer had the largest number of student-athletes on the Commissioner's List with 156 followed by Women's track & field and cross country, which had 151. Football led all sports on the Academic Honor Roll as 211 student-athletes were named to the list. Baseball was second with 137 on the Academic Honor Roll.

About the Sun Belt Conference
Entering the second decade of the new millennium, the Sun Belt Conference continues to challenge itself, and its competitors, in all aspects of intercollegiate athletics. Not content with being simply the youngest football conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the conference has shown that it can rise each and every season that comes along. And since the birth of the league as an FBS member in 2001, the evidence is clear that the conference is indeed rising above competitors and peer conferences.

The Sun Belt finished second in bowl winning percentage among all 10 FBS conferences the last two seasons. Reaching back to the 2014 season, no conference has a better total bowl winning percentage (.611) than the Sun Belt. All that success comes as the 2018 season will see the conference split into East and West divisions for the first time and stage its first-ever championship game at the end of the regular season on December 1, 2018. 

Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Louisiana, ULM, South Alabama, Texas State and Troy give the league 10 football members. Little Rock and UTA compete as Sun Belt members in sports other than football.