Pride (In the Name of Love)

This is the second blog about why I believe the time has come for GSU to move forward with a plan to jump from FCS (formerly I-AA) to FBS (formerly I-A). The first blog is here.

As I write these words, I'm at home in an apartment less than an 1/8 of a mile from Paulson Stadium, listening to Beck's newest album and generally living like a 24-year-old who recently graduated from college and is trying to hang on to the lifestyle. In fact, I'm 34, about to get married, gainfully employed by a huge company and I just spent two hours paying bills, managing finances and preparing mentally to argue with my health insurance provider (while listening to the Decemberists and Ray LaMontagne). Decidedly, I am further away from being a college student and closer to being Wooderson from Dazed and Confused. I offer no apologies, however.

Mostly, I just don't care what the vast majority of people think—about me or about a tremendous number of general issues. An overwhelming percentage of society is composed by the intellectually adequate, a slightly smaller percentage by the intellectually inadequate and a far smaller slice still by real thinkers (who still get subdivided into "pompous," "neurotic," "waaay too smart for me to handle," and "actually cool," with the last category being the smallest group of all). Also, I actually take pride in Georgia Southern, GSU football and my proximity to both. If I'm Wooderson, then all right, all right, all right.

At no point have I ever chained my pride in Georgia Southern to the opinions of the World At Large (see first sentence of previous paragraph), although I am suitably warmed when someone not of the GSU family gushes warmly about my alma mater (or simply acknowledges the school's existence). For one, I don't think opinions about my school by others can greatly influence my own experience at GSU, which must have been plenty good, because I'm still here. It's like people who go on and on about how Rush is the greatest rock band of its generation when I think they were musical wankers and Geddy Lee's voice sounds like a cat stuck in a thresher. I'm not changing their minds, either, although those people are obviously tone deaf. And yes, I just compared myself to a Rush fan. Probably I am going to hell.

So when many arguments touting Georgia Southern's undeniable need to move from I-AA football to I-A boil down to a simple matter of pride, there are some intrinsic philosophical points that have to be addressed before anyone can proceed with the argument. And while we're talking philosophical points, let's take a moment to make a note on conventions: I know that I-A and I-AA are now designated as FBS and FCS. But since the debate about where Georgia Southern belongs has long been framed in the old nomenclature, I am going to continue to use it for general purposes.

But back to pride.

Since one paper published by Purdue University shows almost no financial reason to move from I-AA to I-A, there is very little leap in logic to assume that most schools moving from I-AA to I-A (or creating a new program from scratch with the intention of playing I-A football—see South Florida, Florida International and Florida Atlantic) do so because of the perception of legitimacy I-A football gives not just an athletic program, but also the school that program represents. It is exactly the opposite of when a box office star steps down to make an art house film to establish more credibility as an actor/actress. It doesn't seem to matter that (a) Florida International is more irrelevant than Brittany Spears' thoughts on post-modern art or (b) no matter how good a film Pecker is, everyone is going to remember Edward Furlong from Terminator 2.

Unrelated side note: If you are ever looking for an image from the movie Pecker to use in a blog, make sure the adult content filter on Google Image is turned "on." Gladiators and former prisoners don't deserve what I saw to bring you the image above.

On those occasions where a former I-AA team does jump up and make a splash (see Boise State, Marshall), the "pride factor" has less to do with the jump up than the accomplishments at the higher classification. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on schools moving to I-A to have a plan in place for picking up wins. Because, honestly, the good people at Kent State aren't proud of their degrees because their football team plays in I-A. In fact, a lot of them aren't aware their school has a football team. To make a move to the larger division and then fail to return to something of a form familiar to Georgia Southern fans is a death sentence for the program. Look at attendance numbers from 1992-1996 and then at 2006's rapid downhill trend at the turnstiles—GSU fans would rather mow their lawn than see the Eagles lose. Literally.

Flip the pride argument around and suddenly you have Georgia Southern football fans who weigh the possibility of ever winning a BCS National Championship (absolutely zero) against the possibility of winning several more I-AA titles (historically and statistically likely) and say, "you know, being a big fish in a small pond is just fine with me." For these folks (and despite my change in stance on the I-A/I-AA issue, I'm one of them), their pride is tied to on-field success. Those in favor of a move to I-A are also impressed by on-field doings, but they operate under the assumption that moving to I-A comes with a brief transitional period before the school returns to its winning ways. I'm not saying the pro-I-A contingent just thinks this is going to just magically happen—they simply believe that the statistical proof (most teams struggle initially after a move up, despite the Marshall correlative (and essentially, the Herd came so close to cheating during their move that the NCAA re-wrote the rules)) can be overcome by parlaying more prestige into better athletes, leading to better teams and a natural resumption of winning. Those more willing to stay at I-AA and (hopefully) continue to dominate the division place no smaller premium on the continued build-up of the program than their expansion-minded neighbors. They just don't see any pride in being the champions of the K-Mart Bowl (insert Raymond Babbit quote here).

Of course, the I-AA folks would have to accept that in staying a I-AA powerhouse, Georgia Southern would get fewer opportunities to play "name recognition" schools (maybe one per season) and more chances to host Samford and Johnson C. Smith. It's the price of doing business. This makes the regular season at GSU almost meaningless and places the weight of expectations on postseason performance. It is worth noting that since the I-AA classification was born in 1978, only one team has won more than two titles with a non-option offense (Youngstown State), although Appalachian State might join the Penguins this season. Georgia Southern won six titles with a triple option offense that made the Eagles tough cookies when the talent cycle was at low tide and damn near unstoppable when all the pieces were in the right place. Since the Eagles don't run the triple option any more, the chance of putting together another run like the 1985-1990 span or the 1997-2002 splurge is unlikely. The nature of the offense made Georgia Southern a more potent opponent in the playoffs, and the playoffs is where you separate the good programs from the icons in I-AA.

If you want to take the metaphorical plunge, think of football coaches as really good chess players who essentially recruit bigger, stronger, faster pawns, rooks and knights. It will make this next part a little easier to follow: the best coaches in college football are only separated from good coaches by intellectual centimeters. But when a coach comes in and does something truly different—when pawns move like bishops and knights fly around like queens—conventional football (or are we talking about chess?) wisdom and strategy fall by the wayside. And since one coach is really familiar with the other's conventional strategy while the other is struggling to adapt to an unconventional attack, the unconventional coach has a full-time advantage. The POINT to all this is that if a pro-I-AA GSU fan's pride is wrapped up in winning titles, then a more conventional offense like the one under new coach Chris Hatcher might win a bundle of regular season games and even the odd I-AA title, but football IQ tells us that winning titles in bunches might be a little tougher. Maybe not, but if we're playing the odds, the odds favor the old way of doing things, even if they don't outright dismiss a return to form under the new regime.

Just worth noting for the sake of argument.

As much as I would like to dismiss school pride as a bona fide reason for Georgia Southern to move to I-A, I can't. Trust me, I worked on the logic of dismissing pride for a while. I got up from the computer. I changed the music (to the Avett Brothers then Gift of Gab). I ate lunch. I read a book about a vampire private detective. No dice. I have to admit that in the final analysis, any move to a higher classification is mostly about pride, just not in the way described above.

It doesn't really matter if you or I or the guy in the bar thinks more of Georgia Southern because they play I-A football instead of I-AA football. It also doesn't matter whether or not the Eagles win six more I-AA championships or seven Sun Belt titles and four Motorola Phone Bowls. Unless the Eagles landed in the SEC, beat LSU for the league title in 2010 and trounced Michigan in the Sugar Bowl, both sides of the argument are flatly wrong on these points.

For reasons I'll go into with more depth later, Georgia Southern simply must give the impression that the overall athletic program is moving forward. Because the NCAA did no favors to the I-AA contingent with the recent name change to "FCS" (again, more later), the value of membership in the championship subdivision has only been muddled. Even if the Eagles keep atop the division, the price paid by the rest of the athletic department might be steep.

From 1985 to 1992, the football program won four I-AA titles. The basketball team appeared in the NCAA tournament twice (the women would go twice in 1993 and 1994) and the baseball team went to the College World Series. Let's not pretend that the other non-revenue sports really matter in this discussion (they'll later play a role as we consider Title IX). From 1998-2001, the football program resurfaced as a powerhouse, the baseball team went to a handful of NCAA regionals and the basketball program came back from the brink of disaster. Correspondingly, when the football program has been down, other sports follow suit. This past season the football team was awful, the basketball team was as bad as it has been under the current coaching staff and baseball has been shaky. This is not a coincidence. Georgia Southern golf is currently the best sports program on campus in relation to the rest of Division I, but the golf success (a) doesn't draw 15,000 ticket-buying spectators or (b) influence other athletes to come to GSU.

If other athletes had a complaint about I-AA football, it was that everyday fans also assumed Georgia Southern played I-AA baseball and basketball. The subdivision created for football only was spoiling life for the rest of the athletics department. Of course, the NCAA went about correcting the name problem in completely the wrong manner (again, that's for later), so the lingering effect of being in the lower half of the subdivision surely remains—not because of the pride of the fans or the administration, but because of the pride of potential future recruits, who would like to play at a school that isn't accidentally referred to as "Division II" by both casual fans and supposedly learned observers alike.

Moving up would be about changing perception, not about changing the agenda. In the final analysis, a move to I-A, if successful, would be a boon to every athletic program on campus. In the eyes of many, it would also be a boon to the reputation of the university. But I don't believe the school should move up because of pride at all. Even though I can't dismiss pride as a valid reason for many to find moving to I-A attractive, I think the Eagles have to leave their familiar nest for a different reason. They need to get out before the clock strikes midnight.

That's right—I think time may be running out for Georgia Southern to control its own destiny.