Georgia State football got off to a roaring start on Sept. 2 when they took down Shorter University 41-7 at the Georgia Dome where close to 30,000 people were in attendance. But the question at that point was how will the rest of the season go for the Panthers?
That’s one of the many challenges a new football team has to face. As much excitement as there is from students, faculty and alumni for the team, there is a lot of uncertainty as well.
But Georgia State has been up to the challenge so far with a 4-2 record after six games and has had an average attendance of over 18,500 which ranks eighth in the FCS.
The reason for their success could be Bill Curry being the head coach for the first-year program. Curry, a Georgia native, played college football at Georgia Tech was the head coach for Alabama, Kentucky and his alma mater. After the coaching stop in Lexington, he spent 11 years with ESPN as a college football analyst.
On June 11, 2008, 12 years after stepping down as the head coach for Kentucky, Curry accepted the job as the head coach of the Panthers, and when his team took the field for their first game, he said it was like he was always there.
“It’s like riding a bicycle. It’s like I never left,” Curry said while speaking to members of the Touchdown Club of Atlanta. “I love being on the sidelines. I love being engaged in the huddle.”
STARTING FAST …
In the Panthers’ first game against Shorter, an NAIA program from Rome who has had a program for the last six years, GSU looked like the more experienced team, firing on all cylinders to earn their very first win.
However, things did not go according to plan the next two games, losing to Lambuth and Jacksonville Sate. In those games, the Panthers made mistakes young football teams tend to make in the form of turnovers and making physical mistakes whether it’s dropping passes or missing tackle. They were able to right the ship the next three games by edging past Campbell and blowing out Morehead Sate as well as Savannah State.
During Curry’s speech at the TCA, Curry told fans what he likes most about his team and, based on the way they have been playing the last three games, the answer is obvious.
“I love our team because our guys love to play,” Curry said. “We may not run the right direction, we may not catch the ball, we may not make the tackle. But we’re flying around. We’re trying and we’re having fun all the time.”
There are some players that have done well this season, such as quarterback Drew Little who has thrown for over 1,000 yards and 12 touchdowns, and Fred Barnes, who leads the team in tackles with 35. But Curry said the reason for their success is everyone on the team believes in Georgia State football and believes they can build a program that can be successful for years to come. In fact, there have been ordinary students coming up to Curry because they want to be part of the program.
“We have guys everyday begging to try out everyday just to be on our team and some of them are good enough to play,” Curry said. “Some of them have earned a spot covering kicks as walk-on players.”
LOOKING AHEAD …
The Panthers have five more games before their inaugural season comes to a close. Their next home game will be this coming Saturday when they host North Carolina Central. Then they will be on the road for the next two games and will play against Old Dominion and South Alabama before they come back to the Georgia Dome to take on Lamar in their final home game of the season. Then GSU will have their biggest game in their very young history when they face 2009 FBS national champions Alabama in the final game of the year.
Because of the strong start the Panthers had in the first half of the season, the second half sets up nicely for them to have a successful season, at least when it comes to wins and losses. So is the program ahead of schedule, or and they right on schedule?
“I didn’t have a specific schedule time that I wanted certain things to happen,” Curry said. “We got more good offensive linemen than I thought we could find at this point. We have fewer defensive linemen that can actually play than we thought we would have. We have some making up to do in some areas and we were a little ahead in others.”
Curry has done something very few football coaches get to do and that is build a football program from the ground up and make it a team that fans want to support and make it another option for college football here in the Atlanta area. They are going to have their ups and downs the second half of the season as well as the first few years when they move to the Colonial Athletic Association in 2012. But under the watchful eye of Curry, GSU will have more wins than losses and should be another team from Georgia that becomes a huge success
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