It’s hard to imagine, but what if Georgia State were to beat Washington on Saturday?
How would that “signature win” affect ticket sales, donations and marketing for a school that is using athletics as part of its plan to increase its profile nationally?
Charlie Cobb, hired last month as Georgia State’s athletic director, held the same position at Appalachian State when it knocked off Michigan in the Big House in 2007 in one of the biggest upsets in sports history.
“We had a great season in one day,” he said.
Cobb cautions that the win in 2007 affected Appalachian State differently than what beating the Huskies — the Panthers are more than 30-point underdogs — could do to Decatur Street.
First, Appalachian State already was a successful program with two national championships. It added its third to cap the season that started with defeating the Wolverines. It was its third consecutive FCS title.
So, while there was regional interest in the Mountaineers before 2007, the victory gave it a national platform that still resonates.
Georgia State, which snapped a 16-game losing streak earlier this season, is in its fifth season of football and is fighting to earn regional interest, much less national exposure.
A win over the Huskies might engage Georgia State’s students and alumni who, based upon an average announced attendance of 14,585 through 29 games at the 71,000-seat Georgia Dome, have failed to be interested.
The university has an enrollment of 32,000, with more than 100,000 alumni in metro Atlanta.
“It’s our biggest challenge and biggest opportunity,” Cobb said. “If you can have success on a national stage, the student pride would resonate throughout campus.”
Cobb thinks that ripple could spread throughout the city, with those yet-to-be-engaged alumni perhaps attending a game. The market at Appalachian State was close to capped, so it didn’t see this type of possible sea change.
The victory was a factor in the increased quality of students applying to Appalachian State, something that should interest Georgia State because President Mark Becker has said he wants enrollment to increase. The SAT scores for the entering freshmen over the next two years at Appalachian State increased by 60 points after increasing by three points each year for the previous 25 years, according to Cobb.
“The ‘Michigan Moment’ certainly had a lot to do with traffic in kids coming to Appalachian,” Cobb said.
The impact of the last major change might also be much greater at Georgia State than at Appalachian State.
The university in Boone, N.C., was in the midst of a capital campaign when the victory occurred. The campaign reached $200 million, $50 million of which was earmarked for athletics. Cobb said he doesn’t think the university could have set that $200 million goal without that victory. Additionally, annual giving to athletics increased from $1.3 million to $2.4 million that year.
Georgia State is the process of trying to raise $2.5 million to build a strength-and-conditioning facility for football, $5.5 million for a sports-performance center and $3.875 million for an academic-performance center.
There’s also the $300 million proposal Georgia State has put forward with partners to purchase Turner Field and the surrounding land. Though Becker has said the university has the means for the purchase, a few extra fundraising dollars couldn’t hurt.
The university has a marketing plan in place to take advantage of the moment should the university one day earn that signature victory. Among the pieces include an increase in advertising with the university’s different partners.
Georgia State coach Trent Miles wouldn’t get into the “What if” scenario when asked how a signature win could affect Georgia State.
Instead, his answer underlined Cobb’s point on how big wins affect schools differently.
“Every win is a plus for us,” Miles said.
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