Are You Ready For Some Georgia State Football?

Counting Down. One Week To Kickoff.

1.      We're First

• Georgia State's first game kicks off on the first day NCAA football can be played. GSU is one of 33 Division I games played on that first day, Thursday, August 30. It is the only game played in the state of Georgia. It is the game played in the largest stadium on that night of the 33 openers.

2.      Giveaways Galore

• Free Bleed Blue T-Shirts. Free tablet covers. Free phone wipes. Free Thunderstix noise makers. Free pom-poms.  All are while supplies last. Check out BleedBlueRewards.com for even more opportunities.

3.      Listen, Watch, Be Seen

• Bring your sign and be seen. Comcast-TV (CSS) will televise live throughout the southeast with Bob Neal and former Atlanta Falcon and Brave Brian Jordan describing the events. Photographers from around the southeast will be there (even GeorgiaStateSports.com), so your sign might be seen there, too. Or, your blue costume or enthusiastic way of showing support might be seen, too. Listen live to the pregame and postgame shows on NewsTalk 1160 radio with Dave Cohen, former Falcon Harper LeBel and NBC-TV's Sam Crenshaw, as well as the game. Being there is best, but if you can't be inside the Dome, don't miss it wherever you are.

4.      Win One For the Coach?

• Coach Bill Curry has announced he will retire at the end of this season, so maybe we can all help make his final home opener a win? Either way, it is part of history and you can say you were there.

5.      Not Since Deion

• Not since Deion Sanders was playing football for the Falcons and baseball for the Braves will the Georgia Dome be the home field for a two-sport baseball-football star. Commentator Brian Jordan will be calling the game for TV as a two-sport star, but he didn't play in the Dome.
• Georgia State junior Mark Hogan has been a two-year starter at linebacker and is the second-leading tackler in GSU's short two-year history. He made a game-winning interception in overtime last year against South Alabama. In the spring, Hogan put on the cleats and moved to the GSU baseball diamond as an outfielder. Hogan batted .319 (to lead the team) with 20 runs scored, a .448 on-base percentage and a .457 slugging percentage with a couple home runs. He bats left-handed (didn't Deion?).

6.      Weather Or Not?

• It won't matter what the weather conditions are outside, the weather conditions inside will be perfect inside the state-of-the-art Georgia Dome. So, whether it is hot, cold, sunny, rainy, windy or calm, the weather indoors will be great.

7.      Learn The New Rules

• The NCAA moved kickoffs up from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line. That's to lessen the number of injuries that occurred with the intense full-speed contact and should encourage fewer Kickoff Returns by kicking the ball deep into the end zone.
• The players on the kickoff team must be within five yards of the yard line of the ball and can't take the long running starts some players did.
• A touchback when a returner downs the ball in the end zone will now be brought out to the 25-yard line instead of the 20-yard line.
• On punt plays, blockers cannot jump over a player in an attempt to make the block, they must jump more straight up like a volleyball player at a net. Players can still leap at an angle if there is no blocker.
• If a player loses his helmet, he must stop or a penalty will be called and the play blown dead. That rule requires a player that lost his helmet to sit out a play.

8.      100,000 Again

• GSU played before 117,251 home fans in the Dome in the inaugural season and then 101,621 in the season's final game at Alabama. We don't know about 100,000 attendance at home yet for 2012, but we know the Panthers could play before another 100,000 road crowd when GSU travels to Tennessee on Sept. 8.

9.      America's Busiest and Most Popular Stadium?

• Football is king in the South and king at the Georgia Dome. The Georgia Dome has become one of the most widely-known and favored stadiums in America in its 20 years of existence.
• This year, the Dome hosts 8 games in 7 days to start the football season. On Saturday, Aug. 25, the Dome will host the annual Corky Kell Kickoff Classic with five games in one day, making at least 14 hours of football. Ten top-ranked teams from Georgia's largest classification will battle under the bright lights with the first game at 9 a.m. and the last an 8:30 p.m. kickoff if the games don't run long. GPB-TV will broadcast as well as radio.  On Thursday, Aug. 30, college football begins with the Georgia State-South Carolina State game. That is followed by the Friday, Aug. 31 game with N. C. State and Tennessee coming to the big stage. On Saturday, Sept. 1, Clemson heads south and Auburn heads east to meet under the big top of the Georgia Dome.  Of those 8 games, only one team plays on its home field: Georgia State.
• The hometown Atlanta Falcons will be away during the 7-day extravaganza, but will be under the national spotlight at home in the Dome when Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos come to town for exciting Monday Night football on Sept. 17.
• The popular Dome has hosted Olympics basketball and gymnastics, a pair of NFL Super Bowls, will host its third NCAA Final Four this year (the 75^th anniversary game), after also hosting a Women's Final Four. The Dome will host the annual New Year's Eve Chick-fil-A Bowl game, as well as another SEC Championship game. It was home for the Atlanta Hawks when they played Michael Jordan and the Bulls before an NBA record 62,000-plus. It has hosted international soccer (Mexico vs. Venezuela), and all the entertainment events from concerts to WCW Wrestling. It's even featured on the USA TV series "Necessary Roughness" as the fictional home of the New York Hawks.

10.  The Only Uniform Of Its Kind

• The Panthers Nike uniforms are one of a kind because when GSU began football in 2010, a special Sparks font was created for use by the athletics department and for the uniform numbers. The Sparks font was so named in honor of GSU's first president. So, each numeral is a unique number not seen on any other college, pro or high school uniform in America.

11.  FBS and FCS

• The top levels of NCAA football are the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). There are 120 FBS football schools with seven transitional (GSU is one of those seven) teams over the next three years. The FBS schools are eligible to compete in a Bowl game (there were 35 played last year between Dec. 17 and Jan. 9.  There are 11 FBS conferences for football.
• There are 122 FCS football schools that compete to play in the NCAA Tournament with 20 bids. Between the FBS and FCS, there are 242 football-playing schools, with a total of 396 athletics programs as 104 do not play football (much like GSU before football). There are 14 FCS conferences for football.
• In addition, there are 154 colleges who play NCAA Division II football, another 239 who play NCAA Division III and another 86 who play at the NAIA level for football. Add all five of those levels up and there are 725 colleges and universities that have football teams. In addition, another 700 schools have athletics programs, but do not have football teams, for 1,425 colleges with athletics at those five levels of competition.

12.  Working Overtime

• The NCAA didn't adopt overtime until 1996, meaning there are tie games galore in schools' football histories. There are no ties in Georgia State's two-year history, but the Panthers wasted no time in getting into the overtime play. GSU's third-ever game was an overtime game (a 34-27 loss to Jacksonville State). GSU's seventh game also went into overtime, but this time the Panthers prevailed, 20-17. 
• In the second season, GSU played its first double overtime game, defeating South Alabama 27-20. That was game seven and the Panthers ran off two more OT games in back-to-back-to-back weeks.).
• Amazingly, GSU has played 22 games in its history and five of those have gone into overtime, or 22.7% of all the games played in GSU history. The odds are pretty good that is the NCAA career record for a school for overtime games versus their total games played.
• The moral of the message: NEVER leave a Georgia State game early.