With its bowl future undetermined, the Georgia State football has dialed back its practices so its players can rest and heal.
The Panthers, who completed a 5-4 regular season with a 30-24 win over Georgia Southern on Nov. 28, have stayed away from contact and limited the time and intensity on the field.
“It’s really about healing our bodies,” Georgia State coach Shawn Elliott said. “When you’ve been going at it this long, it feels like two seasons almost.”
The Panthers will practice in helmets three times this week for a little more than an hour. They are also doing lifting and conditioning work.
“I wouldn’t say it’s been an exhausting season, but with a lot of stress with everything that’s gone on, we’re using this time to relax, break a good sweat, go through our assignments so we know what we’re doing and how we’re going to do it,” Elliott said. “That’s about it.”
The tedium started when Georgia State had its Sept. 3 opener against Murray State canceled and had to wait two more weeks before starting the season. The Panthers lost its game against No. 1 Alabama when the SEC went to a conference-only schedule, and they canceled a game with Charlotte for what turned out to be false-positive COVID-19 tests.
Georgia State has been kept in the dark about its prospects as a bowl team. Those assignments may be determined as early Sunday, when most of the conference games are completed. The Sun Belt Conference has five bowl tie-ins – the Myrtle Beach Bowl on Dec. 21, the New Orleans Bowl on Dec. 23, the Camelia Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 25 and the Lending Tree Bowl in Mobile, Ala., and Cure Bowl in Orlando, both on Dec. 26.
The conference championship game will be played Dec. 19, meaning Coastal Carolina and Louisiana-Lafayette likely will receive those Dec. 26 bowl spots. That leaves the most likely spots for Georgia State as Myrtle Beach, New Orleans or Montgomery.
“I’m pretty confident we’re going to get in one,” Elliott said. The Panthers made a bowl appearance in two of Elliott’s first three seasons. They won the 2017 Cure Bowl against Western Kentucky and lost to Wyoming in the 2019 Arizona Bowl.
With limited tickets expected to be available for fans, there could be less emphasis this season for bowl committees to select a team based on how its fan base travels. There likely will be more importance given to teams that play the sort of games that will engage a television audience. That bodes well in Georgia State’s favor.
“I’d say we run an exciting, up-tempo offense. We average 32 points, and we’re going to bring some scoring,” Elliott said. “That’s what fans like to see, it makes good television programming, and it bodes well for whoever picks us.”
He would just like to know who the opponent is going to be.
“It’s not any fun for the coaches and players to go out and practice for nothing,” Elliott said. “It’s like going through the motions. Everybody says it’s about player development, but when you’ve been practicing for as long as we have it can get monotonous.”
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