Friday, November 19, 2010
Sports D.O.W.: GSU football comes to an end (until next year)
Posted by Ben Bussard on Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:39 PM
Georgia State University's inaugural football season came to an abrupt end last night in Tuscaloosa, Ala., as the Panthers lost a nail-biter to the defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide, 63-7.
But that was to be expected—some sports handicapping websites listed the Tide as a 57.5 point favorite.
What wasn't expected was just about everything else that happened over the course of the season for the Panthers and head coach Bill Curry.
No one expected more than 30,000 fans to show up for the season opener against Shorter College—or the 41-7 blowout that ensued.
No one expected the team to post a winning record in its first year of existence, but they did (6-5).
And no one—especially readers who frequent this blog—expected the Panthers to average 16,750 fans per home game, but they did that too.
In fact, before the season started, GSU athletic director Cheryl Levick hoped to average 10,000 fans per home game—5,000 students and 5,000 season-ticket holders—in order to simply cover the operating costs of the Georgia Dome.
If it hadn't been for a let down loss to Lambuth following their emotional season-opening win and a heart-breaking loss to a Jacksonville State team that beat Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss., a few weeks prior, the Panthers could have finished 8-3.
But let's not get too greedy.
The first year of Georgia State football was a success despite the way it ended last night and hopefully now the students who begrudgingly paid an $85 fee to support it can see that.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
Thanks for the great write up. As a GSU grad, season ticket holder, and Georgia native, I'm thrilled with the season. But nothing this year made more happy than to see my Panthers sprint 97 yards downfield to score on the defending national champs! We had so many people doubting us this year, including if I recall, some CL staff. I hope we continue to grow, succeed, and convince skeptics.
-GSUtimes2
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Debates aside, a research university in the heart of a city does not need a football team.
Nice work Ben.
What's more impressive is that the team collected a $435K paycheck last night and will finish it's football campaign generating more than $100K in revenue. Football teams in their first year do not make money, they are seen as losing propositions. That's a huge credit to our athletic admininstration and the fans of our program to come out and support.
This is only the beginning. I cannot wait until I get to see my Panthers again this spring.
@GSU that is an ignorant statement of epic proportions.
Is Florida State a research university? How about South Florida? Pittsburgh? Southern California? Boston College? Miami?
All major cities in every state have college football within shouting distance.
Look at the Top cities in the United States and the research universities along with them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_media…
Don't let facts get in the way of a good argument. Go Panthers!
GStateben: The key word there is "need."
As a condition for the statement to be false, all of the universities you point out in those top ten cities would have to have the largest endowments. It doesn't take a whole lot of research to find that in several of those cities, the universities with the largest endowments do not have football programs.
Even Georgia alone serves as an example: Emory's endowment in 2009 was estimated to be $4.328 billion, larger than UGA's and Ga Tech's endowments, combined:
http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2…
In any case, much credit is due to Ga State on a good first year.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PANTHERSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! Anc Coach Curry, cause he's got bandwagon all by himself!
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