Editor's Note: On April 9, 2012, Georgia State was officially invited to join the Sun Belt Conference and compete for 14 league titles starting July 1, 2013. This is the second of a seven-part series looking at the Panthers' move into the Sun Belt, including an historical look back, a peek around  the conference as a whole, as well as sport-specific information about GSU's upcoming league opponents.

Heading into its 37th year of competition, the Sun Belt Conference will have a new look as it fields 10 member schools in 2013 before continuing its expansion a year later.

The geography of the league is centralized with two schools each in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, plus one in Kentucky, along with GSU. 

One of 10 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) conferences, the Sun Belt will receive bids to two postseason bowls. Teams will compete for spots in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl against a Conference USA opponent and the GoDaddy Bowl in Mobile vs. the MAC champion.

The strong basketball league will host its conference tournament this year in New Orleans. Both the men and women earned two NCAA bids last season in basketball, a feat they will look to repeat or better this winter.

After competing in the Sun Belt in only the individual sports last year, Georgia State will compete for 14 Sun Belt titles and automatic NCAA bids in 2013-14. Men's soccer and women's sand volleyball will remain outside the league for now but will should find a competitive home soon.

To help you get to know who the Panthers will be playing, let's do a quick tour of the schools and places Georgia State will compete on a regular basis.

First, we'll head west, going state-by-state as we cross the borders:

Around the State of Alabama

In Alabama, GSU will renew a long rivalry with the Troy Trojans, a three-hour drive away, just south of Montgomery. Troy made the jump to FBS in 2001 and joined the Sun Belt for football in 2004.

With 27,500 students in the university, Troy has expanded its football stadium to now hold 30,000 fans and it opened a new 6,000-seat basketball arena in 2012.

Both the Troy athletic director, John Hartwell, and basketball coach, Phil Cunningham,  previously worked for Georgia State athletics. The public university was founded in 1887 and continued to expand its 650 acre-campus in the city of Troy with a population of about 20,000.

Further south in Alabama, Georgia State will continue its rivalry with football newcomer South Alabama in Mobile, a little over five hours from Atlanta. The university was founded in 1963 and has grown to more than 15,000 students, having one of the two state-supported medical schools in Alabama.

The Gulf Coast port city of Mobile has more than 200,000 residents with a large metro area expanding to 500,000.

The inaugural football season was played in 2009 with the Jaguars playing in the city's Ladd-Peebles 40,000-seat stadium that has been home to the Senior Bowl since 1951. The 10,000-seat Mitchell Center opened for basketball in 1999.

Around the State of Arkansas

Moving west into Arkansas, the Arkansas State Red Wolves are located in Jonesboro. It is in the northeast part of the state about an hour northwest of Memphis, making it about six hours from Atlanta. Arkansas State's 14,000 students make up a key part of the population of 70,000 in the city. 

The second-largest university in the state, ASU sits on 800 acres atop Crowley's Ridge. The football program has played at the FBS level since 1992, and has won back-to-back Sun Belt titles, with former Georgia State defensive coordinator John Thompson serving as the interim head coach in the GoDaddy.com Bowl win over No. 25 Kent State last year. Former Texas offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin takes over in 2013. They averaged 26,000 fans in the 31,000-seat stadium last year, a dynamic home field advantage. Former LSU basketball head coach John Brady heads the Red Wolves' basketball program.

Also in Arkansas is former Trans America Athletic Conference foe Arkansas at Little Rock. UALR is located in the downtown of Arkansas' capital city with 40 buildings spread around campus. UALR, about 500 miles from Atlanta, has a similar reputation to GSU as a commuter school, with its first dorm not built until 1990. UALR does not play football, so basketball gets most of its fans' attention. A $25-million arena, behind a $700,000 donation from NBA star and alum Derek Fisher, was opened in 2005-06 with 5,000 seats.  The Trojans earned their most recent NCAA tournament bid in 2011.

Around the State of Louisiana

Louisiana also boasts a pair of Sun Belt schools. Louisiana-Monroe is located off Interstate 20 in northern Louisiana, midway between Jackson, Miss., and Shreveport, La.  One thing Monroe and Atlanta have in common is that both have been headquarters for Delta Air Lines. Monroe, a city of 50,000, was the home city for the first Delta passenger flight in 1929. Delta has been in Atlanta since 1941.

The college sits on 238 acres and has about 9,000 students, with graduates like country star Tim McGraw and TV star Willie Robertson, and CEO Duck Commander. Football is king with a 30,000-seat stadium for the Warhawks, who grabbed headlines last year in contests against three BCS squads, including beating No. 8 Arkansas. After finishing tied for second in the Sun Belt, they earned a bid to the Independence Bowl last year.

The Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette come from the southern bayou. The city with a population of 125,000 is located off I-10 in southern Louisiana, west of Baton Rouge, and sits just 38 feet above sea level.

The college is the second largest in the state with 16,000 students and is noted for its business college. The sports-crazy town supports its Ragin' Cajuns by filling the 31,000-seat Cajun Field, known to them as The Swamp.

With back-to-back 9-4 seasons culminating in wins in the New Orleans Bowl, football fever is raging. SEC fans remember they had Florida down by 10 points last year at that Swamp, but the Gators scored twice in the final two minutes for the win.

Around the State of Texas

The farthest west in the Sun Belt is the two newest members in Texas. Texas State is located in San Marcos, a city of 50,000 located off I-35, about 30 miles from Austin and 45 miles from San Antonio.

Formerly known as Southwest Texas State, its long history includes graduates in President Lyndon Baines Johnson and country music legend George Strait. The student body of 35,000 gives the city a college-town feel. The school has had football since 1904, excelling at the Division II level and FCS on its way up to FBS. The head coach is former Texas A&M and Alabama mentor Dennis Franchione, who guided the Bobcats in the WAC last year.

Texas-Arlington sits in the metro Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area, sitting just a few miles from the Texas Rangers' ballpark and Cowboys Stadium. It just completed a $150 million engineering research center that is central to the 33,000 students who are mainly commuters. Only 2,000 students live in campus dorms.

The sprawling campus of 420 acres includes more than 100 buildings in the city west of Dallas and east of Fort Worth, between Interstates 20 and 30. The school disbanded football in 1985, and its main focus is now basketball. College Park Center opened in 2012 with 7,000 seats for a team that earned an NCAA bid in 2007-08 and an NIT bid in 2012.

Around the State of Kentucky

The lone school north of Georgia State is Western Kentucky. The Hilltoppers will play one final season in the Sun Belt before leaving for Conference USA.

This year, a football team that advanced to the 2012 Little Caesar's Bowl in Detroit will come to the Georgia Dome under former Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino. The basketball-rich school has earned 21 NCAA bids in history.

The Future

Another pair of schools who are making the rise from the FCS ranks in 2014 should provide great rivalries for Georgia State.  Georgia Southern, a former TAAC rival, will bring a strong football base, many of whom work in Atlanta, to the league. 

FCS power Appalachian State will also add appeal and a rich football history when it faces the Panthers.  

In 2014, two schools from the WAC will re-join the Sun Belt for football only: Idaho and New Mexico State. The Vandals hail from Moscow, Idaho, and the Aggies are located in Las Cruces, N.M.

The Sun Belt Conference's theme going forward is “Together We Rise” and it can be seen through its new logo revealed in May. For Georgia State athletics, it's a new era as well as it tries to rise to new heights.