I’ve thought about it some more, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I love the H&H with GSU. It adds so much more anticipation and excitement than a regular G5 OOC game would. Regardless of whether or not it helps GSU recruit, Tech should be consistently pulling top 25 classes by then and it won’t matter. You want to claim you own Atlanta? Beat the other team in the city. Go to their own stadium, fill it with your fans, and beat them there. It’s literally the same mentality that Georgia has with Tech. If you stripped the history away from COFH, and just saw where UGAg had scheduled a H&H with Tech, the arguments against it on their side would be damn near identical to the arguments you guys are having against GSU. Smaller stadium, smaller fan base, not recruiting the same players, legitimizing their program, high risk-low reward, etc. Tech should destroy State, just like Georgia should destroy Tech in the current states of the programs. You want to stop the jokes about State being the 2nd best team in the state? Beat em. You want to have a legitimate claim to the city’s ownership? Beat em. Want to claim the entire state of Georgia? Beat Georgia.
Hell, honestly I wouldn’t be opposed to making Ga. State an annual game. Somehow get UGAg to schedule Southern annually, and we’ll find out who really runs this state. Obviously neither of those scenarios will probably happen, but it would be fun if it did.
I also wanted to drop this here. It’s a list compiled by a Southern fan of P5 teams playing on the road at G5 stadiums. There’s some schools very comparable to Tech on this list.
Notable omissions are:
- Oklahoma State (ranked #11 at the time) at South Alabama
- Missouri at Wyoming
- Stanford at UCF
I saw earlier in this thread someone say elite programs don’t play G5 teams on the road. Well, I hate to break it to you, but Tech isn’t elite.... yet. Besides, there’s probably only 10-15 teams in the country that have a legitimate claim of being “elite”. But this list just goes to show it’s not uncommon for above average, to very good teams to play G5 teams on the road.