Let's catch up on the history of Kennesaw State football:
- In like 2005 I bought a shirt that says KENNESAW STATE FOOTBALL: STILL UNDEFEATED. It remains accurate.
- In November, 2007, the school surveyed students on whether they'd be down for an increase in athletic fees if it meant a football team. Over 77 percent said yes.
- On December 3, 2009, former UGA football coach and athletic director Vince Dooley confirmed he'd met with KSU about starting up a football program.
- On December 10, 2009, the school announced it was whipping together an exploratory committee, chaired by Dooley.
- As of May, 2010, student and alumni support for a program was clear, but recession economics were the committee's primary concern.
- On September 15, the school will announce the committee's decision.
- Today, the school's athletics Twitter thing spake the following:
Five Days till KSU finds out about the decision on Football!
KennesawStAthletics
KSUOwlNation
Ok, you don't exclamation-mark tease via Twitter if the answer's no. Let's assume KSU is starting a football program within the next couple years. (If it's not, then I'd like a word with whoever runs that Twitter account.) Let's also assume nearby Georgia State's astounding early success helped speed the process and soothe lingering anxieties.
The Fighting Owls would be in better shape than most newborn football programs, already having the state's third-largest student body; Vince Dooley's good name; a new, good-enough, $16.5 million, and well-painted 8,300-seat stadium that looks like a bumblebee museum from George Busbee Parkway; a booming campus with 180 million parking spaces; a nearby Fuddrucker's and other major metropolitan surroundings; and general local college football insanity.
But any KSU students expecting Thirteenth Grade to crank out the same day-one program as Georgia State are in for a disappointment. The Concrete Jungle Cats (Rrrrreeeow!) have enjoyed an incredible run of powerups and startup booster packs -- jackpot after jackpot, from Bill Curry to the Georgia Dome to FBS transfers to an ESPN the Mag front cover a to game with the national champions. If Owl Nation (GIVE IT TIME) lands a coup half as big as even one of those, we can consider ourselves extremely lucky. I, for one, dread the inevitable attempted rivalry with GSU.
Still, it's something to be excited about if it happens, which probably will be the case because honestly who tweets such a thing otherwise? Owl athletics have taken off in the past decade or so, winning Division II national championships at men's basketball, women's soccer, baseball, softball, and cheerleading (yes!) and sending eight players into Major League Baseball. There's no reason Owl football couldn't follow suit, though it'll probably never be as successful as KSU's dominant club hockey team.
(For the record, NCAA 11 Dooley convinced Jim Donnan to leave his gig at 680 The Fan and coach my Kennesaw State dynasty, securing us a year-one Heisman-difficulty date in Sanford Stadium. We play our home games at Practice Field 1 -- it's lovely, but we have no idea how the palm trees got there -- and we smoke Western Kentucky at recruiting due to Atlanta's Campus Lifestyle boost and Donnan's C+ Coach Experience. Woooooooo!)
Either way, Kennesaw State alumni are looking forward to the school being known for something besides the Spaceship Earth micro-disaster.
More to come.