16 replies to this topic

[912]

For my first post on this subject, I'd like to propose that Georgia Southern move up to Division I-A (or whatever its been renamed).  There's certainly enough students attending there to justify a move, and now that Georgia is a top 10 state in population, it needs to join the other large Southeastern states (FL & NC) in having more than two I-A schools.

Back when GSU was dominant in I-AA football, they should have made the move to I-A.  Why they didn't, I have no clue.  Yes, if they made the move now, they'd stink, and stink for probably a few years.  However, it would be nice to have actual, big time college football in S. Georgia.

Or...are the board of regents afraid all the focus will be taken off of precious lil Athens?

[Topher1]

Sounds reasonable.  I can't think of a better candidate in the south to make the transition.  They're a winning program every year, and are in a state with a tremendous talent base.  What are the facilities and attendance like?  I think there's a min. stadium size and minimum attendance level required to remain a 1-A program.

[Spartan]

How big is Georgia Southern?

[912]

Spartan, on Nov 25 2007, 03:08 PM, said:

How big is Georgia Southern?

I wanna say between 15,000 & 20,000.  Certainly a larger student body that I-A schools such as Wake Forest, for example.

[twincity]

i agree, I think GSU should go D I-A.  maybe it would help with some growth in Statesboro?

i thought GA already had 3 D I-A schools?

[Spartan]

If thats the population, GSU could easily handle moving to D1-A. But does the school want to?

twincity, on Nov 25 2007, 03:51 PM, said:

i agree, I think GSU should go D I-A.  maybe it would help with some growth in Statesboro?

i thought GA already had 3 D I-A schools?

There are probably other Division 1 schools, but not D1-A in football. That probably holds true for most states.

[ironchapman]

fromsc2tx, on Nov 24 2007, 04:40 PM, said:

For my first post on this subject, I'd like to propose that Georgia Southern move up to Division I-A (or whatever its been renamed).  There's certainly enough students attending there to justify a move, and now that Georgia is a top 10 state in population, it needs to join the other large Southeastern states (FL & NC) in having more than two I-A schools.

Back when GSU was dominant in I-AA football, they should have made the move to I-A.  Why they didn't, I have no clue.  Yes, if they made the move now, they'd stink, and stink for probably a few years.  However, it would be nice to have actual, big time college football in S. Georgia.

Or...are the board of regents afraid all the focus will be taken off of precious lil Athens?

As a GSU student, perhaps I can answer some of these question (no doubt andremurra from Statesboro could probably answer them a lot better, though).

The reason that GA Southern has not moved into the Division I-A, as far as I can tell, is because of the size of Paulsen Stadium--it's too small. I believe the same is true with Appalachian State in NC.

fromsc2tx, on Nov 25 2007, 03:21 PM, said:

I wanna say between 15,000 & 20,000.  Certainly a larger student body that I-A schools such as Wake Forest, for example.

There are 16,425 students at GSU. Andremurra has a really good post on all of this in the Statesboro forum.

[912]

ironchapman, on Nov 27 2007, 12:25 AM, said:

As a GSU student, perhaps I can answer some of these question (no doubt andremurra from Statesboro could probably answer them a lot better, though).

The reason that GA Southern has not moved into the Division I-A, as far as I can tell, is because of the size of Paulsen Stadium--it's too small. I believe the same is true with Appalachian State in NC.


There are 16,425 students at GSU. Andremurra has a really good post on all of this in the Statesboro forum.

Which is funny to me, that when Paulsen was expanded in the late 80's (I believe), and the football program was in its heyday, why then the push wasn't made to go I-A.  Oh well, shoulda woulda coulda.

[Spartan]

They could still do it. They would have to expand the stadium and find a conference that wants them...

[912]

How timely!

http://www.savannahnow.com/node/406808

It's a shame that the NCAA just imposed a 4 year moratorium on teams moving from one division to another.

[ironchapman]

twincity, on Nov 25 2007, 03:51 PM, said:

i agree, I think GSU should go D I-A.  maybe it would help with some growth in Statesboro?

I think it definitely would. Many people, like it or not, will go to a school if it has a good football program, especially if it's D I-A.

A larger GSU would bring in more business to Statesboro to satisfy the demand s of the fans and the growing number of students.

Quote

i thought GA already had 3 D I-A schools?

There's UGA and Georgia Tech. The only other schools that I can think of that would qualify as Division I-A schools would be GA State and Kennesaw State. Neither of them, to my knowledge are at that level though--at least not in football.

I'll do some more research into it...

[andremurra]

The entire university is going through a major transition as it is with its identity – dealing with the projected numbers that will be coming into GSU over the next two decades.  Moving to Football Bowl (I-A) is definitely desired by the students and administration, but the timing is kind of stressful, and the moratorium is likely a very good thing considering the timing with this transition and all.  Historically, Georgia Southern has had sudden growth spurts thrust upon it, and has dealt with the growing pains quite well.  Right now, it seems as though suddenly after one hundred years in the making, Georgia Southern has been discovered by the rest of the world, and the prestige that is being recognized all at once, is proving to be a little too stressful for the community right now.

Current enrollment is at 16,841 and the mean SAT score has increased 141 points in the last ten years.  The Carnegie reclassification from Masters Colleges and Universities to Doctoral-Research Universities is primarily what has brought upon us the identity crisis.  The university community wants to conduct more research and continue moving up the ranks, but not at the price of losing our unique Georgia Southern culture of student-centeredness, teaching-focused faculty, and collaborative student-faculty relationships.  What you get at Georgia Southern, you don’t get anywhere else – and we want to maintain that identity.  We do not want to become a UGA where 500 students at a time are taught by a graduate assistant.  We want our doctorate professors to continue teaching level 1000 courses.  Simultaneously, we also want to move up the ranks and become a premier research university.  So we are taking small baby steps and testing ourselves as we go to make sure we do not lose our culture.

Part of this transition is also maintaining this culture by not allowing our students to be just another number or letter grade.  The BOR wants us to pick up the slack for UGA, but we have no desire to imitate UGA’s model, which we do not look up to.  We want to be the best, period, but not at the expense of our students and culture.  There is a reason our dorms stop at 4-stories, and we don’t have a parking deck (yet).  We are trying to figure out how to achieve what we want while maintaining our model.  And that’s what everything that happens at Georgia Southern boils down to.

The BOR refers to us as the Big Three now (UGA, GT & GSU), and they want us to be the new UGA – but we don’t necessarily see eye to eye with the BOR.  Projections have us at 25,000 by 2017 and we are out of land (and that projection does not take into account if our school moves up to I-A, that is the current rate of growth projection).  Our first parking deck is going up soon, another residence hall with 1001 beds starts construction next semester.  And the football program – we the students and the administration are behind it 100% – we want Football Bowl classification, but not at the expense of our students and culture.  So while this moratorium is in effect, we are hoping to figure out how we can move to I-A without selling out our students.  We don’t want to fee the crap out of our students to fund a move either, so that is going to be one of the biggest obstacles.  President Grube will support the best strategy for the move, when its time.  No one is allowed to say it for sure, but in the small meeting rooms and planning councils, we all pretty much agree, and know where we stand.  But we must do it right – and that’s the only obstacle.

Edited by andremurra, 03 December 2007 - 10:52 AM.

[j.midtown]

ironchapman, on Dec 2 2007, 03:45 AM, said:

I think it definitely would. Many people, like it or not, will go to a school if it has a good football program, especially if it's D I-A.

A larger GSU would bring in more business to Statesboro to satisfy the demand s of the fans and the growing number of students.

There's UGA and Georgia Tech. The only other schools that I can think of that would qualify as Division I-A schools would be GA State and Kennesaw State. Neither of them, to my knowledge are at that level though--at least not in football.

I'll do some more research into it...

The former Division I-A, now the Division I - Football Bowl Subdivision, refers (as the new name explicitly states) only to the level of football played.  There are only two DI-FBS schools in Georgia currently.

Georgia State (the GSU that people in the Atlanta metro refer to) is about to launch a football program to compete at the DI-FCS (formerly DI-AA) level. They have said so far they only plan to play at that level however, it would not surprise me at all if they harbor secret desires to move up to FBS after a few years.  The Atlanta metro area is full of HS talent that is  currently snapped up by UGA, Auburn, Clemson, etc.. (even Alabama hopes to make in-roads there); keeping some of that talent home at GSU should make for the base of a competitive team. They also are on a tremendous growth curve with the enrollment now over 27,000 and lots of new constuction/development under way and planned on campus.

[ironchapman]

j.midtown, on Dec 3 2007, 11:18 PM, said:

The former Division I-A, now the Division I - Football Bowl Subdivision, refers (as the new name explicitly states) only to the level of football played.  There are only two DI-FBS schools in Georgia currently.

Georgia State (the GSU that people in the Atlanta metro refer to) is about to launch a football program to compete at the DI-FCS (formerly DI-AA) level. They have said so far they only plan to play at that level however, it would not surprise me at all if they harbor secret desires to move up to FBS after a few years.  The Atlanta metro area is full of HS talent that is  currently snapped up by UGA, Auburn, Clemson, etc.. (even Alabama hopes to make in-roads there); keeping some of that talent home at GSU should make for the base of a competitive team. They also are on a tremendous growth curve with the enrollment now over 27,000 and lots of new constuction/development under way and planned on campus.

If Georgia State ever upgraded to FCS (after it gets its football team), that would make for an interesting potential rivalry with Tech since they are so incredibly close when compared to most other universities of their size in the Southeast (region, not the conference).

[j.midtown]

ironchapman, on Dec 4 2007, 09:00 AM, said:

If Georgia State ever upgraded to FCS (after it gets its football team), that would make for an interesting potential rivalry with Tech since they are so incredibly close when compared to most other universities of their size in the Southeast (region, not the conference).

Pretty much the only cross-town matchup in the country where the schools are at the same level is USC-UCLA.  There are others, even in the southeast, where there the schools are nominally at the same level (both play at DI-FBS) but there is a disparity between the programs - Miami-FIU probably the most notable because of the fight a couple of years ago. FAU is also close to both of those.  Middle Tennessee State University is in Murfreesburo which is a suburb of Nashville, home to Vanderbilt, and they have played some in the last few years, including an MTSU upset of Vandy a couple of years ago. Most of the North Carolina schools are fairly close to each other; SMU and TCU are close and the Great Lakes region schools (those in Michigan, Ohio, etc) don't have a lot of distance separating them.

Tech and Georgia State would definitely be the closest in the country though, as there is roughly a mile between the two campuses.

[aboutmetro]

That's a great map showing the teams. Those are all D1A?  I heard on Alabama Public Radio that USA (University of South Alabama) had moved a step closer to adding football to it's program. Here's a website dedicated to the search for football.  According to the fact sheet, the school has 14,000 students. It is in D1 in all other sports and seeks D1 for football.  That makes 5 teams in Alabama...

[Spartan]

Yeah, its all the D1-A except for Western Kentucky, which was just added this year.