I have been an Eagle fan since the late 80's, but our ship may have sailed. Sure, we have along history of success first as the most credentialed FCS team in history and initial success in FBS. However, we may face the future of Idaho due to market forces. Teams like GA St can have bad seasons and due to the ATL market, still find corporate buyers for season tickets. In addition, you guys can have down years and still sell tickets due to fan loyalty and being a tourist destination. Statesboro is not either of these and a few seasons like the last one will spell 5K in the seats on football Saturdays. Couple that with the fact of half our fans drive from ATL and won't come for a bad record, especially on weekday games and 5K might be optimistic in a couple years. I do miss the GS/APP rivalry, but it may be a thing of the past soon. Good luck with your program as FBS is tough for non P5 schools as many G5s are considering dropping down or out.

RIP

Is this just your personal sentiment or is there legitimately something afoot?

You can't be a real GS fan, can you?

I was at the App/GaSo game this year. It was a Thursday night and there were plenty of people there (your second-best-attended game at Paulson, according to the numbers I just googled). I noticed quite a few prominent sponsorships, too. More than we have at App.

Sponsor dollars and butts in seats (at the start of the game) weren't an issue. The issue was that as soon as you started to tank, the place emptied out like it was on fire. Don't get me wrong, App has way too many fairweathers for my taste, and we get plenty of exodus situations when the game gets lop-sided, but what I saw at Paulson was rough. It was a beautiful night and the place was a ghost town in the 4th quarter.

And to be honest, I don't know how App fans would deal with a season like you had last year. We certainly didn't show ourselves to be the hardiest fan base in 2013 and 2014. Heck, even when things turned around in 2015, we had a lot of aluminum showing in the stands. But I don't think most of us were as doom and gloom as you are now.

Buck up. You gnat-eaters are supposed to be made of sterner stuff than this.

Very few places pack the stands for four quarters when the team stinks. That's not an App thing or a GS thing, that's a human being thing.

EastHallApp wrote:Very few places pack the stands for four quarters when the team stinks. That's not an App thing or a GS thing, that's a human being thing.

Of course. I still found it surprising how quickly and fully the place emptied out, especially considering the game was tied at the half. If it had been a skull-dragging from the first quarter, that'd've been one thing, but App didn't really start to get the best of the Iggles until lateish in the 3rd.

My point in even bringing that up is that two main issues the OP cited (distant fanbase and anemic sponsorship) didn't seem to be issues in that game. Folks just didn't want to see a loss.

Wonder if they're panicking because of what's going on over at Savannah State.

HeffnerIV wrote:Wonder if they're panicking because of what's going on over at Savannah State.

Maybe, but is there a worse D-1 team than SSU? Quick back-of-the-envelope math tells me that since SSU joined the MEAC, they have a staggering 8-69 record. They won a total of 5 MEAC games across their 7 years in the conference, and 3 of those wins were last season.

I mean, I knew SSU was bad, but I didn't realize they were quite that bad.

I get that Eagles fans are frustrated after a bad season but this kind of "conclusion" after one bad season is just downright silly. GS was trending up at the end of the season after making some changes (finally) to use the talent on their team. A few changes in the assistant coaching ranks and they will be right back in the mix.

Yosef84 wrote:I get that Eagles fans are frustrated after a bad season but this kind of "conclusion" after one bad season is just downright silly. GS was trending up at the end of the season after making some changes (finally) to use the talent on their team. A few changes in the assistant coaching ranks and they will be right back in the mix.

They won their last game after losing 7 of the previous 8 - might be a little generous to call that "trending up." But I agree it was largely an issue of terrible coaching hires. Question is whether turning over some assistants will be enough or if Summers will have to go too.

EastHallApp wrote:

Yosef84 wrote:I get that Eagles fans are frustrated after a bad season but this kind of "conclusion" after one bad season is just downright silly. GS was trending up at the end of the season after making some changes (finally) to use the talent on their team. A few changes in the assistant coaching ranks and they will be right back in the mix.

They won their last game after losing 7 of the previous 8 - might be a little generous to call that "trending up." But I agree it was largely an issue of terrible coaching hires. Question is whether turning over some assistants will be enough or if Summers will have to go too.

Yeah, point taken. I should have looked at the results to refresh my memory. Trending isn't the right word since a trend requires more than one win. That said, they had an extra week to prepare and their play calling changed significantly. It showed on the field with a win over HEAVILY favored Troy. I think people knew all year that the talent was there (other than the OL) but play calling was the worst I've seen in a very long time. This isn't a "rebuilding" situation. It's a re-staffing (coaches) situation.

Good coaches find a way to win with bad talent, and bad coaches find a way to lose with good talent. . . .

In the words of a certain App position coach in the parking lot in Statesboro after the 2016 Georgia Southern game when I heard T-Dog ask him if he almost wished GaSo would improve for the sake of the rivalry:

"Well.....f*ck em!"

If I EVER speak this negative, pessimistic or lose as much faith/hope in App State football, I give the site admins full permission to ban me for life from posting.

Our post 2007 years didn't meet expectations until recent years, however I stuck around. Didn't care who we lost on the bandwagon, but knew I would always have full support

I can see why this guy got banned from The Flight Line.

If they were to leave that would be a tremendous loss for us. Imagine what it would mean to unc if Duke left the ACC. We have no other rival. Now I don't think they are going anywhere but it is not getting any easier to compete money wise in G5 of FBS. Give us two bad seasons and our ticket sales will drop like a lead balloon.

bcoach wrote:If they were to leave that would be a tremendous loss for us. Imagine what it would mean to UNC if Duke left the ACC. We have no other rival.

Southern is undoubtedly our #1 rival at the moment. Fortunately though, we're surrounded by good regional programs (CCU, Marshall, ODU, WKU) that could become solid rivals if the worst happens to GS, or we're separated by realignment.

Troy is, at the moment, our toughest rival in football. Each of our games against them have been competitive and they were arguably the best team in the conference in 2016.

SayYesToTheRock wrote:

bcoach wrote:If they were to leave that would be a tremendous loss for us. Imagine what it would mean to UNC if Duke left the ACC. We have no other rival.

Southern is undoubtedly our #1 rival at the moment. Fortunately though, we're surrounded by good regional programs (CCU, Marshall, ODU, WKU) that could become solid rivals if the worst happens to GS, or we're separated by realignment.

Troy is, at the moment, our toughest rival in football. Each of our games against them have been competitive and they were arguably the best team in the conference in 2016.

Takes a long time to build a real rivalry

bcoach wrote:

SayYesToTheRock wrote:

bcoach wrote:If they were to leave that would be a tremendous loss for us. Imagine what it would mean to UNC if Duke left the ACC. We have no other rival.

Southern is undoubtedly our #1 rival at the moment. Fortunately though, we're surrounded by good regional programs (CCU, Marshall, ODU, WKU) that could become solid rivals if the worst happens to GS, or we're separated by realignment.

Troy is, at the moment, our toughest rival in football. Each of our games against them have been competitive and they were arguably the best team in the conference in 2016.

Takes a long time to build a real rivalry

I agree for the most part, bcoach and I would never consider Ga State a rival (unless it is in terms of a WCU type of rival where we own the series 50 something to something in the low teens. However, I can't quite put my finger on why exactly but I have taken in great pleasure in the beatdowns of gsu thus far and will only be happier when we take down the Shawn Elliott version of the kitties.