They’re the second- and third-largest universities in the state, and they’re based in the Atlanta area. Georgia State began playing football in 2010; Kennesaw State’s first game is tentatively scheduled for 2015. There the similarities end.
Three years in, Georgia State is already facing a series of sobering realities. It just went 1-10 and saw its famous first coach retire, and next year the Panthers will move to the Sun Belt Conference, which plays Division I (or FBS, as it’s now known) football. Average announced attendance for six 2012 dates at the Georgia Dome was 12,309.
In launching its program, Georgia State did a lot right. It hired Bill Curry as coach, and he attracted media attention and conferred credibility on the whole undertaking. GSU's inaugural game drew a gathering of 30,327, and those Panthers finished 6-5. Georgia State has since gone 4-18 while generating only one crowd of 20,000 in a building that can accommodate 71,000.
Three years in, Georgia State still faces a hard slog to claim even a niche of a crowded Atlanta market. As Kennesaw State celebrated its newest program Thursday, Vince Dooley – the former Georgia coach who chaired the exploratory committee – said of the nascent Owls: “They’re going to have some downs. We had them at Georgia … Sometimes the road will be rough. But there will be great roads, too.”
Kennesaw State has a lower sports profile in the metro area than even Georgia State, but that could work to KSU’s benefit. There has been nothing rushed about the school’s decision to play football, and there will be no pressure to make a start-up program more than it is.
In 2002, Stan Dysart served as chairman of the first KSU committee to consider football. (For the record, Dysart is the Bradley family’s orthopedist.) On Thursday he was asked what advantages Kennesaw football had over Georgia State. “The geography is better suited,” Dysart said. “We’ve got the suburbs. And we’ve got a stadium that suits our needs at this time.”
What does Kennesaw consider its target audience? Said athletic director Vaughn Williams: “Cobb County, Paulding and Cherokee.”
Those three counties are part of metro Atlanta, but not nearly all of it. And that’s the point: KSU’s target audience can indeed be targeted. Said president Dan Papp of his school’s footprint in the northwestern suburbs: “Eighty percent of our alumni live within a 35-mile drive.”
Dooley again: “Two and a half million people live in this area, and I’m not talking about all of Atlanta.”
Williams again: “I think we have an advantage they might not have downtown.”
Georgia State plays in an off-campus downtown stadium built for the NFL Falcons. KSU will play in an on-campus 8,300-seat stadium built for soccer that sits just off I-75 and I-575. (Fifth Third Bank just paid $5 million for the naming rights.) Said Papp: "I'm absolutely convinced we're going to pack the place every game."
Granted, it’s easier to fill 8,300 seats than 71,000, but that’s another point in KSU’s favor. The Owls won’t have to get huge to be seen as a success. They have a clear notion of who they are and want they want to be.
Georgia State, by way of contrast, may have gotten ahead of itself of itself. The Panthers played only two seasons before the school announced a move to Division I. Georgia Southern, by way of further contrast, has spent 29 years in Division I-AA (now FCS) and won six national championships, and only in April 2012 did it state an official intent to move to FBS.
Will Kennesaw State ponder such a leap? “There’s no plans for that as far as the eye can see,” Williams said. Then this: “There will be no talking about that as long as I’m here. In the foreseeable future, there are no plans for anything other than FCS.”
In football, Kennesaw State is never going to become a Georgia. But it might, given time and the right coach, stand a fighting chance of becoming the northern counterpart to Georgia Southern. (About the coach: Williams said he wants “somebody with strong Georgia roots” and plans to have his man within six weeks.)
“I love our chances,” said assistant AD Scott Whitlock, who was worked at KSU for 28 years. “I love our geography, the growth of our university. We’ve got Cobb County and Northwest Georgia. I think we can become a point of destination for the Northwest Georgia corridor.”
As Whitlock spoke, the floor of the KSU Convocation Center was being cleared of black and gold balloons that had been dropped from the rafters. (They bore the Fifth Third logo, FYI.) On such a happy day, dreaming was easy. But Kennesaw State might have more than a dream. It just might have a workable plan.
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