Georgia State will try to turn Dome into home sweet home

“If I had that answer, we would have corrected it,” coach Trent Miles said.

Through seven games this season, the Panthers are averaging 31.8 points per game in four games on the road compared to 18.7 in three at home. On the defense, the team is giving up 33.7 points at home compared to 40 points on the road.

“I think our offense does a really good job regardless,” quarterback Nick Arbuckle said before last week’s 48-34 loss at Arkansas State. The Panthers had a chance to go up by at least 10 points in the third quarter of that game before failing to convert a third- and then fourth-and-inches.

The trend is odd for many reasons, the least of which is teams are supposed to play better at home than in someone else’s place. There’s no travel. There’s a familiar routine, a familiar locker room, familiar hotel rooms, familiar food. It’s why most teams almost always receive at least three points when the oddsmakers start setting spreads.

But it’s not true with the Panthers.

Despite having the advantage of playing a first-year FBS team and a FCS team as two of their three games on the turf at the Dome, the Panthers simply didn’t play as well as they did in Las Cruces, N.M, Eugene, Ore., Muncie, Ind. and Jonesboro, Ark.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski said he thinks that Georgia State’s players simply enjoy playing on the road.

“Road trips are fun,” he said. “The kids get really excited about playing.”

Georgia State’s administrators, coaches and players say they love their partnership with the Georgia Dome. Teams get to use NFL locker rooms and play in a stadium that has hosted a Super Bowl, SEC championships and impactful bowl games. Before St. Francis defeated Georgia State in 2011, its players filmed themselves “oohing” and “aahing” playing in an NFL facility.

But the environment can be tough for a home team if there aren’t tens of thousands of fans at games and Georgia State, with an enrollment of more than 30,000 has drawn more than 20,000 fans just three times since the program started in 2010.

Its average attendance this season is 10,622, which wouldn’t look that bad in a 20,000-seat stadium. But it looks horrible in an arena that seats 70,000. The stadium can appear dark, quiet and depressing to an observer.

“The venue is simply too large,” wrote one fan, who asked to remain anonymous but who has been going to games since the first one against Shorter. “Big crowds back in the day still seemed small. Small crowds are noticeably small.

“The noise being manufactured is fake and theatrical. Like filming before a live, studio audience this actually diminishes the experience.”

It may be why Arbuckle said “there tends to be more energy when we are on the road.”

The Panthers have three more chances to turn around this trend this season. After Lafayette on Nov. 7, Georgia State will host South Alabama on Nov. 21 and Troy on Nov. 27.

Arbuckle and Miles list reasons why they think the team will play better at home.

Miles said the offensive line has improved tremendously since its last game in the Dome on Oct. 10, a 37-3 loss to Appalachian State in which the Panthers gave up 498 yards on defense and produced just 225 on offense.

Arbuckle said last week that the players, particularly on defense, are learning how to focus their energy so that they can better execute. There was a lot of emphasis on bringing energy, but Arbuckle said that energy is the result of execution, which is the result of focus.

While the team did give up more than 500 yards to the Red Wolves, in its previous game, a win at Ball State, it gave up less than 400.

“I think we are going to work on bringing that into the Dome when we come back after Arkansas State,” he said. “I think you will see a lot better team performance playing in the home stadium.”