PantherTalk.com: On the surface, you have no connections to Georgia State. So what prompted you to include us in your blog about Sun Belt expansion?
Matthew Postins: I lived in Denton, Texas, for two years, home of the University of North Texas, which is a Sun Belt member. I worked at the Denton Record-Chronicle and helped the staff cover the program, which included writing columns about the football team and traveling to the New Orleans Bowl in 2003. This was during UNT’s run of four straight Sun Belt titles. So I know the conference well and I know that they play some good football in this league. It’s not at BCS level, certainly, but it’s a quality product and not many people know that much about it. So when I get the chance, I like to dispel the myth that the Sun Belt is the Sun Wreck, as some have called it.
PT: Is it that obvious from an outsider's point of view, the potential of Georgia State football?
PT: Why does this makes so much sense from where you sit? Our hard core fans often get hammered locally and called delusional. Interested in your thoughts.
MP: I think you start with the market. Atlanta is the hub of the south and it attracts people who want to live and work there. That attracts students, as well. Georgia Tech has typically had a pretty good program for some time, and its metro Atlanta location, in my opinion, is part of the attraction. For student-athletes in the state who don’t want to go far away or can’t go to the SEC, going someplace like Atlanta makes sense. I already mentioned Curry, but it bears mentioning that his SEC background puts the young program in a unique position. He knows what works and what doesn’t work and won’t risk the program’s long-term potential for a quick fix. Georgia has one of the most fertile recruiting fields in the nation (I rank it No. 5 behind Texas, Florida, California and Ohio) and not all of that talent can go to Georgia Tech and Georgia. There’s nothing that says that GSU HAS to go to FBS. They may end up feeling very comfortable in the CAA. But I think the school has enough tools to make that jump. As for delusions, well the world of sports is littered with success stories that started as delusions to most people. Boise State is a real good example. No one thought they would be a national power 10 years ago. But here they are. I’m not comparing the two. What I’m saying is its only delusion if you’re not willing to put in the hard work to make it happen. So we’ll see how much GSU wants it.
PT: I'm interested in your "many believe the Panthers will eventually go Big East" comment. Have you spoken to someone specifically about that?
MP: No one specific, but I read enough and hear enough to read between the lines. As writers, these days we’ve been given license to speculate about such things. That’s not always a good thing. But I don’t think it would be out of the realm of possibility that the Big East would be interested, especially when you consider the media market. I made the assertion in the article that, in the long run, the Big East was more interested in TCU for access to the Dallas-Fort Worth media market. Sure, TCU’s incredible run the past several years probably fueled the Big East’s interest. But TCU won’t go undefeated and go to the Rose Bowl every year. In those equations, it won’t matter to the Big East because they’ll have the TV sets in that market either way. And that matters if and when the Big East decides to go full bore for its own network. That’s GSU’s biggest chip if it decides to make the move to FBS – its location. They hold more cards in that regard than, say, South Alabama, which joins the Sun Belt in 2013. That alone makes the program attractive to any conference that has at least 10 members, since 12 teams gets you a conference championship game and the revenue that results.
PT: In your interview with Tony and Wes on 790 the Zone, you mentioned that a tremendous selling point was the Atlanta media market for future TV contracts. Were you able to locate the existing Sun Belt TV contracts?
MP: They keep that stuff under lock and key, it seems like. I did another pass looking for the numbers, and I found a Sports Business Journal article that listed the television figures for eight conferences, but the Sun Belt wasn’t one of them. The closest I could come up – and I can’t vouch for its accuracy – is from a Mid-American Conference bulletin board from 2008. This board listed the Sun Belt’s gross overall revenue at $9.3 million. But guess what? It didn’t list the Sun Belt’s television revenue. So, the Sun Belt isn’t sharing the figure with the national media, and I think that a large reason for that is the fact that it’s likely under $1 million per year. Heck, the Atlantic 10 made that in 2008, according to the figures on this board, and it’s in FCS. When you consider the money in major college football, the Sun Belt is way behind.
PT: Also, speaking about the potential for bowl expansion if/when the Sun Belt moves to 12 teams. With only 2 bowl tie-ins and 1 option tie (back in option), where do you see for future SBC bowl expansion?
MP: Well now that the NCAA has put a moratorium on certifying new bowl games – thanks in large part to the Fiesta Bowl fiasco – that question is harder to answer. The number of bowl games has gone up greatly the past 5 years. I produced this research for an unrelated article last year. I took a look at the FBS standings for the past five years. In 2005, there were just 33 8-win teams and 55 7- and 8-win teams. After that, the number of teams with at least 8 wins ballooned. In the last four seasons, the number of 8-win teams was no lower than 49, and the number of 7- and -8 win teams was no lower than 60. In other words, there are many more bowl-eligible teams than there were six years ago. The standard 12-game schedule plus the use of FBS wins over FCS teams for bowl eligibility appear to be the chief factors in this surge. The short answer is I don’t know. The SBC is the back-up for the Beef O’Brady Bowl, the BBVA Compass Bowl and the Independence Bowl, but they sent three teams to bowl games, thanks to FIU getting into the Little Caesars Bowl. Since no new bowl games are coming (and more teams are coming to FBS), the Sun Belt’s best plan would be to prove to those three backup bowls that they’re capable of sending competitive teams that have a good traveling fan base, since they make geographic sense.
PT: Do you think Georgia State needs to prove themselves on the field with wins before they can be in a FBS conference discussion?
MP: Well, that would make sense except that UT-San Antonio is going to be in the WAC in 2012 and it hasn’t even played a game yet. But, frankly, the WAC is much more desperate than the Sun Belt right now. Yes, winning against quality programs is going to help their case, and they’re probably several years away from beating a non-BCS FBS school (unless you want to schedule New Mexico). But, I would contend, based on results, that the Panthers aren’t far away from being competitive on a regular basis with just about anyone. GSU pushed Jacksonville State, a FCS playoff team, to overtime, nearly beat South Alabama and defeated Lamar, a first-year FCS school that, I believe, will make the jump to FBS shortly. Before you snicker about Lamar, the Cardinals were competitive with teams like McNeese State last season. McNeese is a traditional FCS power. GSU continues to pursue the right mix of scheduling, putting Houston, UTSA and South Alabama on their schedule for 2011 and mixing it with teams from other levels. This way, once the CAA schedule kicks in next year, the Panthers won’t be shocked. FCS conferences like programs with good track records, and 2 to 4 years of winning seasons should put the Panthers in a position to be courted by FBS conferences, if that’s their plan.
Thanks again to Matthew for joining me and check out his work on PigskinU.com and RoadTripSports.com.
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