Yes, it was only the Cure Bowl, a new entry into a glutted market. True, the world needs another college bowl game like it needs another Starbucks, like this city needs another timeshare.
But the way Georgia State went about the business of playing, and losing, its first bowl Saturday night left no room to believe that this was an unnecessary, frivolous exercise.
Not with coach Trent Miles ventilating his guys in the locker room afterward for the crime of committing two personal foul/unsportsmanlike conduct penalties over the game’s last four plays. “That’s not indicative of who Georgia State is,” he said afterward.
And certainly not with senior quarterback Nick Arbuckle, near tears, reliving a fourth-down, fourth-quarter deep throw that flew just beyond the fingers of Penny Hart. It was one pass that might have reversed the course of this 27-16 loss to San Jose State.
“I”ll be reliving that one for the rest of my life,” said Arbuckle, who has been the face of every success Georgia State has celebrated the last two months.
To think, he said, replaying a single pass in game judged superfluous by the college world at large, that throwing a ball nearly 50 yards to another human running at full speed and missing him by mere inches could cause such heartbreak.
“It was going to be (a touchdown). I’m not missing that throw again,” he said, not knowing if he’ll ever throw another competitive ball again.
Needed or not, if a new bowl game was inevitable, why not wrap it in the pink ribbons of cancer research and send an appreciative six-year-old on an all-expense-paid trip to a very realistic football theme park?
Good causes were all around.
That youngster Saturday was the Georgia State program, born in 2010, raised in the hard, hard city, and for years deprived of many of the finer things such as victories and notoriety.
And the bowl was the Cure Bowl, the great-great-grandson of them all.
It was in many ways an apt pairing. A first-time bowl game and a first-time bowl team making modest history together.
The Panthers on Saturday night found themselves in a very familiar setting — in a big stadium occupied by a small but excited crowd. Just like home.
And they quickly found themselves in a too familiar position — in comeback mode.
Having attended every Cure Bowl ever played, I can tell you that they are traditionally defensive struggles. So, when San Jose State’s Tyler Ervin broke off an 85-yard punt return with 8:55 left in the second quarter, giving the Spartans a 10-0 lead, the deficit seemed doubly daunting. Points just don’t come easily in the Cure Bowl.
GSU lost for lack of offense — gaining just 23 yards on the ground, possessing the ball for close to 17 minutes less than the Spartans. But it didn’t lose for a lack of daring. In retrospect, trailing by four with nearly eight minutes left to play, fourth-and-less-than-a-yard at midfield, maybe the prudent play is to punt. Instead, GSU green-lighted its best player to throw deep. The result: The excruciating near-miss.
The Trojans gratefully took the shorter field, and drove 49 yards for a touchdown that sealed the result. Twice during the night San Jose had a first down inside the GSU 5-yard line. And twice the Spartans settled for consolation prize field goals. The Panthers defense didn’t have another stand in it.
On the macro level, beyond the scoreboard, the Panthers trip to Orlando was an important journey. It represented a pivot point upon which a team which won only two games in the previous three seasons could redirect a reputation.
Only the Cure Bowl, you say? Just don’t say that to Miles, given the opportunity to turn news conferences into PSAs.
The modest Cure Bowl was a stage upon which Georgia State could declare that it was more than the place where the basketball coach had the good sense to have a son who could really play and who won a NCAA tournament game with one leg tied behind him.
Appropriately on hand Saturday was Georgia State’s founding football coach, Bill Curry. Only right that that guy whose first team was attacked by yellow jackets on a borrowed practice field, who scheduled Alabama in the first year of existence, running before it could walk, attend the first bowl game.
Asked to speak to the team Wednesday, Curry made it short and sweet. He told the Panthers they had accomplished the most difficult thing in sports by keeping their faith and will intact, after starting the season 2-6 and winning their last four to become bowl-eligible.
“I told them that I’ve never been more proud of any team than this one,” Curry said.
A bowl game, regardless of its name or limited lineage, was the necessary next step for a program like Georgia State. Dare we say it was even an important game?
The Panthers said they did not arrive in just-happy-to-be-here mode. “We weren’t talking about just making a bowl game. The talk has been about winning the bowl game and getting a winning season,” Arbuckle, the Panthers’ restorative quarterback, said last week.
No, the Panthers (6-7) didn’t check all the boxes with their Orlando visit Saturday.
But a program badly in need of self-affirmation still gained a measure of it.
And over the course of the evening, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation received oversized checks totaling more than $1.1 million.
Meaning was easy to find for those who really looked for it Saturday.
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