New Home, New Hope

Right before the start of the spring semester this past January, Elliott gathered his team together and told them academic performance was the first fundamental of a successful program. Then he ordered them to set a team record for GPA. It was the only goal that mattered, he said.

That spring, the team set the record with a 3.03 GPA.

Elliott is getting that “3.03 GPA” emblazoned on a banner in the new stadium. The renovations didn’t originally call for one, but they do now.

“If this team can achieve a goal like that, any goal is attainable,” Elliott says. “They listened. We made them listen.”

Already boasting a degree in economics, fifth-year senior linebacker Trey Payne (B.S. ’17) says he also considers books to be as fundamental to the game as proper tackling technique.

“Coach sees smart players in the classroom bringing smart play to the football field,” Payne says. “It all correlates. He’s the coach. If he tells you to push a wall, I’m pushing a wall. If he says go to class and get this done, I get it done.”

Elliott is accustomed to getting things done. As the offensive line coach at South Carolina, Elliott helped lead the Gamecocks to three consecutive 11-win seasons — the most successful run in school history.

Former South Carolina Head Coach Steve Spurrier thought so much of Elliott that he made him co-offensive coordinator in 2012. When Spurrier retired in the middle of the 2015 season, the school made Elliott interim head coach. When the school later hired Will Muschamp as the head coach, Muschamp immediately rehired Elliott as his offensive line coach. Do you see a pattern?

“One of Elliott’s strengths as a coach is relating with players and getting them to play hard,” Muschamp says.

Elliott’s second offseason goal was to find some fans.

“This team needs a fan base,” he says. “There will be some excitement the first game, but we have to keep it growing. I know this: Everybody likes a winner.”

In the months leading up to the season opener, Elliott has made his case for support to the university’s Greeks, faculty, students and alumni.

“This is not my football program. This is Georgia State University’s football program,” Elliott says. “For us to succeed at the level everyone wants, we need the entire community to rally around us.”

Elliott has seen programs like Georgia State’s elevate. He was the offensive line coach at Appalachian State in 2007 when the Mountaineers stunned mighty Michigan. Adoring crowds swarmed Boone, N.C., and acclaim for the mouse that roared spread throughout the nation. He’s seen rabid fan support at every stop in his 20-year career, and he won’t listen to the caviling critics who say it can’t happen at Georgia State.

That said, Elliott is also keenly aware of the big splash and crash. After opening its new stadium in 2003, the University of Connecticut (UConn) enjoyed sellouts galore for seven seasons. There has been one sellout since 2010, the last season UConn football had a winning record. Pratt and Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field may sport all the frills of a modern stadium, but it can’t draw fans without a winner.

“I’m not one to step on the gas and try to get everything done immediately,” Elliott says. “We’re going to succeed because our team is going to know how to work, compete, persevere and be prepared. Success is not an overnight thing.”

Georgia State Stadium is the largest football facility in the Sun Belt Conference, but Elliott sees much more.

“There’s plenty of room for us to put a basketball court in there somewhere, so the coaches and staff can play,” Elliott says with a smile. “Charlie doesn’t know yet.”

Elliott and Georgia State Athletic Director Charlie Cobb worked together at Appalachian State and, basketball court aside, share a common vision for the stadium: an academic center for studying, a modern weight training and conditioning facility, and a dining hall.

These bells and whistles are all on the way because the Panthers finally have a place to hang their helmets seven days a week. At the Georgia Dome, the Panthers were blue renters lost amid all the Falcons’ red and black.

The Panthers couldn’t so much as put a tack in the wall. They had to lug everything they needed into the Dome every time they played. Everything they brought with them on a Friday night had to be gone by Saturday night.

Georgia State Stadium, however, is awash in hundreds of gallons of blue, and the walls read: “Georgia State plays here.”

When he does talk about the allure of the new stadium, Elliott gushes appropriately. He loves telling how he took his first group of recruits to the top of the stadium on a cold night in January, the elevator doors opening to reveal the towering Atlanta skyline ablaze like a Christmas tree.

“Wow,” they all said at the same time.

“Wows” are great, but Elliott says he’s after a different kind of “W” — wins.

The stadium was spackled and painted before the Aug. 31 home opener, but football programs cannot patch up their culture with grit and tenacity without the coach leading the way.

Elliott knows the way. In spring practice, the Panthers offense lined up for play “75,” an off-tackle run with an extra running back — none other than Coach Elliott. The ball was snapped, the running back took the handoff, and Elliott stayed on the hip of the runner as they darted into the hole together. Step by step, Elliott coached the running back on reading blocks and being assertive, not just elusive.

“I wasn’t sure if it was a live play,” Payne says. “My feeling is that if we had hit Coach, he would have liked it.”

A coach-speak cliché is in order: “Walk the talk.”

Elliott knows his words don’t mean anything if he doesn’t back it up. There is a lot at stake for Georgia State this season, and he must mean what he says. That’s why he runs in the trenches with his players.

Over the last five years, college football has all but invited the public’s distrust. The avalanche of TV money. The academic fraud. The coaches and administrators who make grandiose, tearful pronouncements only to cover problems up or allow them to continue. Football coaches at Division I schools are presumed guilty; they have to prove their program’s honesty. Some might see the Panthers, along with nearly every other football program in the country, as a drag on their schools’ academic missions.

While Elliott was building trust with his team by running a play and building trust with faculty and administrators with that 3.03 GPA, Brian Kelly, senior associate athletics director for external affairs, has been building trust with communities through the university and city of Atlanta to get fans inside those historic brick walls.

This season, stadium capacity stands at 25,000, and Kelly is pushing alumni to do their share to fill those seats. 2017 graduates received a graduation gift of two free tickets.

“We need alumni to be the change with us,” Kelly says. “We’ve laid a foundation. There’s excitement around the new stadium — more than ever, even after we went to our first bowl game.”

Kelly and his team are talking to alumni, faculty, students and the neighborhoods around Georgia State Stadium. Kelly and other university representatives have attended meetings in each adjoining neighborhood to address concerns and drum up support. One weekend, they brought an inflatable bouncy castle with them and invited neighborhood children to come romp with the Panthers.

Most stadiums built for the Olympics get demolished or fall into ruin. Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Stadium, which became Turner Field and is now Georgia State Stadium, is already one of the longest sustainable stadiums in the history of the Olympics. And now, thanks to Georgia State, the empty parking lots around the stadium will soon join the surrounding neighborhoods as vibrant blocks of housing, retail and office space that introduce amenities and investment the area hasn’t seen in decades.

The players sense an opportunity.

“Coach tells us we’re part of history,” Payne says. “The Olympics were here. A lot of Hall of Fame baseball players were here. I was a huge Braves fan growing up. And now, I’m part of all that history. That’s a special feeling.”

The new stadium will allow Georgia State football to keep track of its history moving forward. There is space for the Georgia State Athletics Hall of Fame, and placards of retired numbers can line the lower bowl — the same space that held up “44” for Hank Aaron, “31” for Greg Maddux and “3” for Dale Murphy.

Elliott doesn’t want to leave Georgia State’s football program as he found it, so he’s laying the foundation for collectible memories. Elliott understands the new stadium is an epic change, but he knows fundamentals and relationships will make sure there is something worth preserving once the shine has worn off.