Promotion Time

Division 1A college football is currently home to 119 teams. Among them, Buffalo, Connecticut, Florida International, University of Louisiana-Monroe. I think the time is here for the powers that be to take a second look at Georgia Southern and elevate them from 1-AA to the big show. I have several reasons, pick your favorite.

The following is a list of how many division 1A football teams a few southeastern states have:

Alabama - 4

Mississippi - 3

Tennessee - 4

Louisiana - 5

North Carolina - 5

Florida - 7

Georgia - 2

I dont think I'm over stepping my boundaries when I say that Georgia is in the top 5 talent rich states for recruiting behind California, Texas, and Florida, but we traditionally send an incredible amount of recruits out of state to schools like Auburn, Florida, FSU, and Clemson. UGA and Georgia Tech simply can't offer them all a spot. While we recruit out of these schools' backyards its nothing like what they take from us, especially from South Georgia. Why not level the playing field a little bit?

Georgia Southern can be competitive at a higher level. We're talking about a school that won back to back national championships in 1999 and 2000 behind the running of Adrian Peterson and has won their own conference (tough with Furman and Wofford both competitive) 7 times of the past 10 seasons. The stadium would need to renovated as it only holds about 25,000 but with a student body of over 16,000 and countless alumni (actually probably countable but I dont have the numbers) there is room for growing support in Statesboro. The Eagles have traveled to Athens twice since 2000 and have held their own both times. Adrian Peterson put up 152 yards on a Bulldawg defense that included Boss Bailey, Charles Grant, Marcus Stroud, Richard Seymour, Kendrell Bell, Will Witherspoon, Tony Gilbert, Tim Wansley, and Jermaine Phillips. Simply put they'd arrive with more steam than most of the newer teams and with such a talent base around them would grow quickly.

The HOPE Scholarship is a beautiful thing. I went to college for free, as did every other Georgia native with a 3.0 GPA. In fact, no Georgia native enters UGA or Georgia Tech paying tuition whatsoever as entrance standards have risen so drasctically. What this means as that the smart kids who once shipped out of state to Vandy are staying home and taking the spots of those, like me, going to Athens in search of a more "extra corricular" experience. It came down to Furman and UGA for me and between free tuition at UGA and the fact I didnt want to be a Purple Palladin for the rest of my life it was an easy choice. So what happens when Georgia says no to a high school senior's application? They flock elsewhere, to Auburn, to Clemson - somewhere you can get a similar experience. I'm not meaning to say that these schools are overflow schools. They're each getting more difficult to get into each year and offer almost equal competition scholastically. Clemson, a land grant college, was previously capped at 12,000 students but expanded to accomodate a growing need and is now home to roughly 17,000. In a month a freshman class of about 3,000 will invade the town. These 3,000 were the cream of a crop consisting of around 14,000 applications, many from Georgia. Many of them just like me, searching for a collegiate experience and an identity as an alumni where I can tailgate with 150,000 people on a cool Saturday in the fall. Georgia Southern has an opportunity to lighten the load for all involved and provide their own Saturdays in the fall, whether on campus or on national television playing one of the old money schools, not as an intended schedule filling patsy, but as an equal. Don't think football matters to the incoming freshmen? Give an SEC football team the death penalty and watch what it does to their numbers. I dont know how quickly I would have rewritten my college application with the words "Auburn" at the top as a high school senior, but it would be a serious consideration and a given for many others.

Georgia Southern has the open space that UGA so seriously craves and could handle an increased crowd when Louisville shows up in town. Imagine West Virginia, Marshall, Tulane, UAB, UTEP and whoever coming to Statesboro every two years. I don't know whether the Big East or Conference USA would be the better fit, but whoever it is would soon have a name that a school the likes of Western Kentucky or Richmond would salivate to have come to town, just as Southern looks at the big dogs now. I don't even mind the recruiting competition that would come from it. I think Athens and Atlanta would both be accepting. Hell, if it keeps a kid from going to Florida...