‘Hard part's begun' for GSU

The first test may be the most meaningful, a Saturday road game at Old Dominion, which last year went 9-2 in its first season, a record for an FCS (formerly Division I-AA) start-up team. Curry holds up the Monarchs, who will join the Colonial Athletic Association in 2011, a year before Georgia State, as a benchmark.

At his Tuesday media conference, Curry gushed about ODU's excellent special teams, a unit Curry has also emphasized, and compared Monarchs' defensive end Deron Mayo to former Virginia Tech star and Lombardi Award winner Corey Moore. He sang the praises of ODU coach Bobby Wilder, whom he has come to know through a CAA meeting.

"We looked at a lot of the things they did, not in terms of specific plays or defenses, but I asked Bobby, ‘Good gosh, man. How did you [go 9-2]?'" Curry said. "You can't do that."

Curry is loath to assess his team by its record, instead focusing on his mantra of improving by 2 percent daily. Ever the competitor, however, he couldn’t resist noting that Old Dominion's opponents were "different" (read: weaker) than Georgia State's, for which a case can be made.

However, only the Panthers' overtime loss to No. 3 Jacksonville State Sept. 18 commends their schedule thus far. They've built their four-game winning streak on the backs of two FCS teams that don't offer scholarships (Campbell and Morehead State), another that is winless and led by an interim coach (Savannah State) and a fourth whose coach was fired after losing to the Panthers Saturday (North Carolina Central).

Still, assistant head coach George Pugh rated the team's play an "8-plus" on a 1-10 scale thus far.

"But we need to reach a peak where we're consistently good to compete against the people we're going to play from here on out," Pugh said.

Following Old Dominion come three more of the toughest tests of the year. The first two games are against fellow 2010 start-ups – South Alabama, which plans to join FBS (formerly Division I-A) by 2013 and has won its six games by an average of 42 points, and Lamar. As you might have heard, Georgia State ends its season Nov. 20 against defending national champion Alabama.

While the end of the schedule makes it a virtual impossibility for the Panthers to match Old Dominion's 9-2, it's hard to deny that Georgia State is setting itself up to be ready to compete in the CAA in 2012.

"The day we played them, I thought it was astonishing that they're a first-year team," Jacksonville State coach Jack Crowe said Tuesday.

Crowe, whose No. 3-ranked team was nearly upset by Georgia State Sept. 18, said the Panthers' experience on the field and on the sideline make them unlike most first-year programs. Their likely starting lineup for Saturday includes 13 transfers, four of whom came from FBS schools, including former Georgia Tech offensive linemen Joseph Gilbert and Clyde Yandell.

Old Dominion's starting 22 includes six transfers, but only two of them were on the roster last year. While that means more underclassmen are getting playing time than Georgia State, Crowe doesn't think it will ultimately hurt Georgia State in the CAA.

"They'll be the southernmost team (in the CAA), which means they'll be the fastest team, which means they'll dominate the league in a period of time," Crowe said.