A change of opinion

Believe it or not, Motley Crue and Alex Pellegrino indirectly convinced me that Georgia Southern football belongs in the FBS, which is the sub classification of college football formerly known as I-A.

It started with Chuck Klosterman's book Fargo Rock City, a tribute to 1980's hair metal that unapologetically touted the pop cultural value of bands like Poison, Ratt and (to a lesser degree, even by the author's own admission) Stryper. The book was inspired by recollections of the Crue's 1983 release Shout At the Devil, which may seem like an odd jump-off point for a discussion of college football—like seeing a Wendy's commercial and then deciding to go out and buy a Mazda—but there was a connection. Not only did I relate closely to the author's musical leanings from 1985 to 1992, but I could appreciate his continued understanding of just how that particular pop culture phenomenon was important and his willingness to embrace it long after Whitesnake ceased to matter in the minds of almost anyone who loves music (including me, for the most part).

I feel like that about I-AA football. I wrote about Georgia Southern and I-AA beginning as a college junior until about two years ago. I was even once "The High Priest of I-AA." Now I sell beer and chaperone the Miller Girls, but that's another story for another day. The point is that it was possible to embrace the culture of I-AA, a division of football big enough to make best programs look more appealing than I-A's dredges. On top of it all, the champion was settled in a playoff!

There are a lot of arguments about I-AA football schools (now called FCS or "Football Championship Subdivision") moving up to play in I-A (or FBS, "Football Bowl Subdivision," better known as the BCS, which is actually the name of the FBS's post-season "Bowl Championship Series"). Among those who call themselves fans of Georgia Southern football—the Notre Dame of I-AA—the debate is a constant undercurrent to any discussion of the program.

My personal stance since I decided to attend Georgia Southern in 1990 has been that being the perennial champion of the smaller I-AA was better than being the perennial champion of an irrelevant I-A conference and a participant in the Commerce Grain Producers Bowl or some other similarly dipshit early-December gridiron asterisk.

Professionally, I explored the possibilities with a 2004 series I produced for the Statesboro Herald about the I-A/I-AA debate and its ramifications for Georgia Southern. The five-part series concluded with an editorial in which the Herald's stated stance on the issue was, essentially, "wait and see." More specifically, it was "wait, continue to build the program, and see." Given the information and the political climate surrounding Division I football at the time, it was a sound position to take on the issue. Then again, I wrote the editorial (and more than four-fifths of the actual reporting), so I may have projected some of my love for I-AA into the issue. When I read the series now, I think I was pretty honest with myself and the readers.

Three years later, we've waited and seen and built. The landscape has changed, Georgia Southern's program has changed and my own opinion on the matter has followed suit and changed, too. Even though I love I-AA football—in fact, because I love I-AA football—I am almost completely certain that my favorite team in my favorite segment of college football must move up. Because of Alex Pellegrino, I'm coming right out and saying it.

I hired Alex in the summer of 2003 to come to work for me in the Herald's sports department with a solid recommendation from Ken Burger, the executive editor of Alex's hometown paper, The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier. Alex has always been an amazing student of writing, sports and journalism (three very separate phases of what most people lump under the umbrella of "sports writing"). I am prouder of my small contribution to her career than any other aspect of my tenure at the Statesboro Herald, and we are still good friends. So when she recently wrote about getting the silent treatment from Georgia Southern athletic director Sam Baker on the I-A/I-AA (FBS/FCS) debate, it was more than a coincidence of thinking. It was a call.

Almost two years after leaving the Statesboro Herald, I'm not sure that my opinion means much to Georgia Southern football fans anymore (if it ever did, really). No matter. I think the argument that I plan to lay out here in the next several days is just an amalgam of thoughts, opinions and theories that have been set down in many other places with varying degrees of effectiveness. It doesn't take a lot of completely original thought to make the case for Georgia Southern to migrate up—but can anyone frame the debate in terms that don't utterly rely on the same tired arguments that float to the surface of every other message board thread like a stinky turd? I think I can.

Here's how we're going to do it at The Institute:

The First Argument (tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, May 2): Why? Why in the world would GSU want to put their entire athletic identity on the line by moving up? This really gets to the heart of the divide between the pro-I-A faction and the pro-I-AA faction. Remember what Marcellus Wallace said to Butch about pride? And what about the rest of GSU's athletic department? Well, I'll argue that they ride the coattails of football more than you might think.

The Second Argument (Friday, May 4—again, tentatively): Timing is everything, they say. So it should surprise no one that many of the arguments about GSU's future revolve around timing. Are the Eagles poised to make a move now? If you announce a move, will money come pouring in? There is also a lot to be said about the things Brian VanGorder did right. Also: When the NCAA won't help you, you have to help yourself. In the case of the moderately-ballyhooed nomenclature change that turned I-AA into the FCS, the schools in "the rest of Division I" are left looking no better than NAIA institutions. If you can wrap your head around just how badly the NCAA crapped the bed in terms of Division I football reform (and I can't entirely do it myself), then the idea of crossing the picket line might not look so awful.

The Last Argument (after the other three): We live in an age where public relations are everything. From Georgia Southern's badly broken athletic P.R. machine to what SouthernFACTS.org is doing wrong (and right), the final piece talks about perception versus reality and how each side could be fighting a better fight.

Along the way, there is no getting around some of the other topics that always creep up when talking FCS/FBS moves, like: conference alignments, that pesky Title IX, those other sports and the possibility that one day the biggest conferences in FBS (plus Notre Dame) are going to tell the NCAA to get bent and go play by themselves. Plus other stuff.

I hope everyone who loves Georgia Southern and I-AA football will leave plenty of comments and criticism. I'll even try to respond with a "mailbag" of sorts as a postscript to these blogs. Then I'm going to write about music, so get your iPods ready.