Georgia State pounded in opener as growing pains continue
Georgia State coach Bill Curry didn't have much to cheer about in opener. (Jason Getz/AJC)
If you haven’t kept up on the uniquely metamorphosing Georgia State football program, it goes something like this:
The Panthers started playing games in 2010. Their first schedule of Colonial Athletic Association games is this season (Year 3). But they’re not eligible for the CAA championship because they’ve already decided to jump to the Sun Belt. The NCAA’s mandated two-year transition to FBS means they can’t compete for championships or bowls until 2014 — not that it was realistic anyway — which effectively means they will have played four years of exhibition games (45) by the end of 2013.
And you thought the NFL preseason was long.
There’s an obvious advantage to this: New programs typically get beat up, and Georgia State has been no exception to this. So this extended stretch of unofficial-ness allows Georgia State athletic director Cheryl Levick to tell prospective donors, “Don’t worry, it’s just growing pains. Just wait until the games really count. Would you like another shrimp?”
But the downside is equally obvious. Georgia State is moving up quickly, maybe too quickly. It wasn’t that long ago when the school didn’t even own a ball, a helmet or a roll of tape. The Panthers struggled against FCS teams. The Sun Belt is going to seem like the NFC East. Sure, you laugh, but the Panthers last season lost 56-0 to a team from Conference USA (Houston), 40-17 to one from the CAA (Old Dominion) and 48-28 to another from the Ohio Valley (Murray State). Nothing screams, “Next, we take Eastern Europe!”
Bill Curry won’t be around for the pain next year. He coached the final season opener of his career Thursday night when Georgia State was drummed by South Carolina State 33-6. The Panthers’ lumps will continue well into Curry’s retirement. Given what another 1-AA program just did to them, imagine what will happen when they start playing FBS programs on a regular basis.
Georgia State has had only two more lopsided losses and both came to FBS opponents, Alabama (63-7) and Houston.
“It’s happening way faster than you would like for it to,” he said. “But in today’s world of college football, you don’t get to choose a timetable. You would like to have the time to be able to build the rest of the elements of this program. You’d like to be able to do that over a six- or seven-year period like most of the other schools did. But in this day and age you either jump on the wagon or you’re left in the dirt.”
Georgia State didn’t make a football decision, it made a financial one. Competing at the FBS level, even while getting hammered, potentially provides more selling points during fundraising. The move to the Sun Belt (with Southeast-based institutions) also makes for less expensive travel for all of the sports programs than the CAA, whose members include campuses seemingly in another galaxy (Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island).
“In a time when there’s such a financial crunch, even when a lot of the so-called big-timers are operating in the red, we didn’t have a choice but to get into the Sun Belt,” Curry said. “We’ll just have to suck it up and do what we have to for a couple of years until we can compete.”
Some of the problems of a young team were evident early against South Carolina State, an FCS school that has played football since 1907. (If you’re keeping score, the age difference Thursday was 105-2.) A Georgia State cornerback, Isaiah Howard (sophomore), fell on the fourth snap of the game, allowing South Carolina State to complete a 78-yard touchdown pass to make the score 7-0. A sack and resulting fumble by Panthers quarterback Ben McLane (freshman) on the Georgia State 23 with just 40 seconds left in the half set up another Bulldogs touchdown, increasing the visitors’ lead to 14-3.
Here’s another problem: Attendance for the season opener was announced at only 18,921. Most of the student section behind one end zone was gone by midway through the third quarter. What does it say when a fan base is so quick to bolt?
Curry is hoping for the best this season, but he’s also a realist.
“We’re tougher physically, mentally and in every other way,” he said the other day. “Now we just have to be able to play football better. Those don’t always go hand-in-hand, but it sure helps.”
It will turn one day. But Georgia State shouldn’t get the idea of moving up again for a while.
By Jeff Schultz
•
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128 comments Add your comment
TheEagleWay
August 31st, 2012
1:24 pm
Per PantherTalk…
People have reported hearing at the game:
“Can a conference uninvite you?”
How does that crow taste?
DGAD
August 31st, 2012
1:26 pm
You are in the Sunbelt now. You will get beaten by teams not nearly as good as SCS. And I’m sure all those SBC fans from Troy and Western Kentucky are going to make you rich.
As for the REAL GSU they will run for 200+ yards on UGA.
Go Panthers!!
August 31st, 2012
1:28 pm
Sparta Bubba, I find this quote from you to be quite telling:
“reserved the “Georgia” for white schools (Georgia Tech, U of Georgia, Georgia Southern, Georgia College, North Georgia, West Georgia, etc.). ”
White schools, eh? Interesting. Last I checked, they are all multi-racial, multi-cultural and open to all walks of life besides just white folks.
Take that crap elsewhere.
Matt
August 31st, 2012
1:40 pm
WOuldn’t it make more sense to play at a lower level like a West Ga. for while and establish something for a few years? Baseball teams do this. They dominate the NAIA or D-2 ranks for a while and then make a jump. Seriously, how will Ga. State every be expected to win a single game at the FBS level?
Paddy
August 31st, 2012
1:58 pm
The Truth…..it seems that having a conversation w/ you is pointless. Calling me a d-bag for making a statement about a cap is over the top. You may want to re-read my post.It was just simple conversation, nothing more, nothing less. You were making a comment, I was making conversation. Why so defensive and crude? Grow up, pal.
Peachstealth
August 31st, 2012
2:05 pm
The Statesboro Herald never claimed to be a statewide newspaper. The AJC does. They just seem to think the state line is somewhere around Griffin.
Ghruten
August 31st, 2012
2:07 pm
It’s ridiculous for Ga. State to play a stadium that size. They need their own appropriate size stadium and build the program. It’s also dumb for them to already be moving into FBS.
Paddy
August 31st, 2012
2:22 pm
Peachstealth……..I may have missed it. I don’t recall the AJC saying it is the statewide newspaper. The Griffin boundry is about right. They have not been in S Georgia in years and many other locals that had been loyal to them over the years. It is just not the AJC. All daily newspapers are going the way of the 8-track and turntables.
Pantherfan93
August 31st, 2012
2:37 pm
And you can cut the history,tradition, and look foward to being in Statesboro. You guys couldn’t even draw 13,000 for the last home PLAYOFF game last season. Yeah. Y’all might sell out opening night, but the great Georgia Southern fans that DESERVE an FBS bid seem to vanish when the season is on the line by leaving Paulson 1/3rd empty. We are a third year team and draw that in the regular season.
GTJeff
August 31st, 2012
3:02 pm
Wow! GSU vs GSU. Two pi.ss ant programs that noone cares about bi.tching about who had the name GSU first.
Paddy
August 31st, 2012
3:15 pm
Pantherfan93…….the next time you are around the GSU ticket office ask them this; Do you count attendance as tickets sold or tickets distributed. The answer and the actual attendance may shock you!
Carl Benson
August 31st, 2012
3:28 pm
Looks like I picked the wrong school to invite to my conference…. where did I leave CL’s number?
Panama
August 31st, 2012
4:00 pm
Our AD needs to go! President Mark Becker, the empty Huddle Seats were a warning shot. You’re losing the few season ticket holders you have if you do not fire her Prada shopping, $1k boot wearing self. Dont say you were not told
Panama
August 31st, 2012
4:00 pm
Our AD needs to go! President Mark Becker, the empty Huddle Seats were a warning shot. You’re losing the few season ticket holders you have if you do not fire her Prada shopping, $1k boot wearing self. Dont say you were not told
Astonishing Werepanther
August 31st, 2012
4:01 pm
There are also benefits to moving up that can make it worthwhile even in the face of seeming adversity. Let’s let this thing play out, people.
We do need to be a better football team. But I believe that we can be, and I’ll be there as we become one.
Jeff, thanks for the article, even if I do think the theme is a little off. Also, note that Maine, NH, and RI are football-only CAA members, so they don’t really affect our other teams’ travel.
Class of 2016
August 31st, 2012
4:03 pm
This was some of the worst football I have seen in a while. I had high hopes of a good team this year.
I think I’d rather go with my room-mate to a Tech game.
ajg-marietta
August 31st, 2012
4:14 pm
Hey Haters, I’m a State fan. I don’t think I was ever arrogant, though.
Losing suck. It’s true. Hope we can get it turned around.
Hunter agrees to new six-year contract at Georgia State | CAAZone.com
August 31st, 2012
4:21 pm
[...] Schultz’s take on last night’s loss in football [...]
Happy St Pat's
August 31st, 2012
4:28 pm
Then again, Georgia State has academic departments which rank in the top 20 in the world. At Georgia State, students work with professors who define “the cutting edge.”. Given the choice, I’ll take top-flight academics over a top-flight football te
ATL Observer
August 31st, 2012
5:47 pm
Georgia Southern trolls: seriously, let the whole “GSU” thing goes. No one outside of you and the State people care. I mean ZERO people care. Why you care is beyond me.
Georgia State trolls: do realize that 90% of the mockery comes from the fact that look down on everyone from smaller schools as though they’re peons and you’ve treated your rise in college football as an inarguable inevitability instead of humbly declaring “you know, maybe we’ll have a rough time of it when we start.” That’s where 90% of this hazing is coming from: from this arrogant “above the CAA, above Southern, above it all” attitude that has yet to be backed up by anything whatsoever.
Now, that aside, I think State could establish a good football program given time, but it’s going to take a LONG time and a whole new coaching staff. Just take the lumps (and the hazing, which you should admit you welcomed with your ‘high and mighty’ attitude) and success will come with the right people in charge.
Peachstealth
August 31st, 2012
7:29 pm
Paddy, I guess I’m living in the past. The Constitution use to call itself” the South’s Standard Newspaper” and the Journal said it “covered Dixie like the dew”.
The Macon Telegraph covers Georgia Southern pretty well during football season and it’s well over 100 miles from Statesboro.
Southern has more students from Gwinnett than any other county, followed by Fulton and Cobb with Dekalb rated fifth so you’d think the Atlanta newspaper would at least cover Southern as well as the Macon paper does .
Paddy
August 31st, 2012
7:34 pm
I don’t mind living in the past, “times were better then’ Problem w/ all those students from metro Atl going to Southern, they don’t buy advertising!
EKY Panther
August 31st, 2012
8:59 pm
It’s pretty easy to understand Georgia Southern’s fans obsession with Georgia State – they are extremely jealous of Georgia State and desperately want to see the football program fail. Football is the ONLY thing that can give them any sense of superiority to Georgia State, and now they are seeing that threatened. Southern has been playing football for 30+ years and they are still in the minors. Georgia State is moving up after TWO years. Anyone with half a brain (and here I may be giving some of these Georgia Southern posters too much credit) knows Georgia State’s football team will have recruiting advantages over Southern that will eventually tip the scales.
But why do you Georgia State fans care anything about Southern? There are irrelevant to us. We should enjoy the fact that they are so obsessed with us that they can’t stay away. Beyond that, Southern is meaningless. By the way, Hunter’s new contract tells me we will be very pleased with our next football coach.
Bulldog1
August 31st, 2012
10:30 pm
Great win for SCSU. We will see GA Southern in the playoffs again and the end result will be in our favor! Go Bulldogs.
Peachstealth
August 31st, 2012
10:34 pm
That puzzles me too. It was the smallest crowd of the year. If you’ll look, Ap State only drew 15000 for their playoff game against Maine. Half of what they drew for their games with Southern and Western Carolina so it’s probably not just a “Ga Southern thing ”
Maybe its the fact that the playoffs come during the Thanksgiving-Christmas season and the students have gone home or are busy studying for finals. I don’t know.
For the regular season Southern averaged 19,249 per home game. Including the two playoff games, it drops to 17,701 which was still good enough for 11th place in FCS football
Georgia State averaged 14,286 per home game for 18th place in FCS
Don’t teams have to average 15,000 to stay in BCS?
Southern_Student_2014
September 1st, 2012
12:41 am
Not to be making any excuses but the playoff game where we only had 13,000 in attendance was during Christmas break right after finals. Maine also didn’t travel as well as most teams did to Paulson. I believe we average around 19-20 thousand during the regular season.
Looking forward to playing Ga State one day and starting a great in-state rivalry! Go Eagles!
Peachstealth
September 1st, 2012
1:15 am
Southern Student, Thanks for confirming what I had assumed.
Que-Bulldawg
September 2nd, 2012
12:27 am
It’s amazing how some of these GSU fans has this pompous attitude that SC State is a lesser calibur football program. This program has produced 3 NFL Football Hall of Famers within it 100 years plus of existence. Several players that played in the NFL. It doesn’t matter if SC State is a HBCU or not we are a Football Legacy. Please research history before making pompous remarks.