Georgia Southern–Georgia State rivalry


The Georgia Southern–Georgia State rivalry, also known as Modern Day Hate, is a college athletics rivalry between the Georgia Southern Eagles and Georgia State Panthers. Both schools are members of the Sun Belt Conference. While the teams have only met six times in football, the rivalry dates back to the 1970s in basketball and other sports.

History

Georgia Southern and Georgia State have only competed against each other in football since 2014. They played annually in basketball from the 1971–72 to 1980–81 seasons, 1995–96 and 1996–97, and 2009–10 to 2013–14 out-of-conference and as conference mates from the 1985–86 to 1991–92 seasons in the Trans America Athletic Conference and since the 2014–15 season in the Sun Belt Conference. As of 2017, Georgia Southern has a 35–18 lead in the all-time series.
Since both schools can be abbreviated GSU, a point of conflict between the two is the claim by either fan-base that their university is, in fact, the real GSU. Georgia State lays claim to the initials as it became a university in 1969 while Georgia Southern didn't achieve university status until 1990. However Georgia Southern is, as an institution, the older of the two schools. Both schools are referred to as GSU colloquially in their region of the state, though Georgia State is the only one of the two that officially brands itself "GSU." For Georgia Southern, the initials were tied to their storied athletics history. Georgia Southern's athletics began as Georgia Southern College or GSC and used the initials in several traditions and fixtures of campus life. As Georgia Southern gained university status in 1990, several of these fixtures were updated to use the initials GSU, most notably the famous GSU bushes at the entrance to the campus and gameday rituals including the "G-S-U Scramble." When Georgia Southern joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2014, Georgia Southern updated its branding and media guidelines to explicitly state the school was to be referred to as "Georgia Southern" or "GS" to avoid confusion in the media, however, the initials GSU are still a part of campus life at both universities.
The football rivalry began after the hire of former Appalachian State athletic director Charlie Cobb to the same position at GSU. During Georgia State's press release introducing Cobb, he revealed that Georgia Southern's athletic director Tom Kleinlein told him "welcome, now the war is on." The two teams met on the gridiron during the 2014 football season at the Georgia Dome. During the run up to the game, fans from both teams expressed their dislike for the other over social media outlets such as Twitter. Students at the time used the hashtags "SouthernNotState" and "StateNotSouthern" in their tweets to differentiate which GSU they attended. Both schools adopted the phrases as a slogan that defined their side of the rivalry. During the period before the game, a beat writer for the AJC dubbed the matchup as "Modern Day Hate," a play on the rivalry between Georgia Tech and UGA, Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. Georgia Southern beat Georgia State by a final score of 69–31, while drawing the second largest crowd of 28,427 for any Georgia State game. In 2015, Georgia State beat Georgia Southern 34–7 to give the worst home defeat for Georgia Southern in school history. Currently, the series is even at 3–3.

Rivalry series

On October 1, 2015, both schools' athletic directors announced the beginning of an annual "rivalry series" in which the winner takes home the Rivalry Series trophy and bragging rights at the following year's football game. The trophy is awarded to the school that defeats the other in a points-based system that encompasses all sports. Most wins will count as 1 point with football counting as 2 points. 2 points total are awarded to community service projects, and 1 to the school with the highest departmental GPA. Points will be totaled at the end of each academic school year. See external links section for full points explanation and scoreboard.
1 In response to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the Sun Belt Conference announced that all remaining spring sporting events after March 16th of that year would be cancelled. Men's and Women's Tennis, Men's and Women's Golf, Baseball, Softball, and Women's Outdoor Track and Field were omitted from the point totals for the 2019-2020 season.

Point Accumulation Rules

The rivalry series tallies wins in each sport between Georgia State and Georgia Southern, the school with the most points at the end of the athletic year winning the trophy. One win doesn't necessarily equate to one point, however, and instead the series will be governed by a set of rules, as follows;
During the post-season, all team sports have the opportunity to accumulate more points with wins over the other team. If that win leads to a berth in an NCAA tournament by way of a conference automatic bid, double points will be awarded.
In addition to sports, two points will be awarded to the school whose athletes finish fall and spring semester with the highest average GPA. Also, one point per semester will be awarded to each school that completes a comparable community service project which is agreed upon by both schools.

Football game results

Georgia Southern's first official season was in 1924. But due to World War II, football at the school was suspended in 1941 and did not resume until 1981. Georgia State's first season was in 2010. Teams did not meet in out-of-conference games prior to both being members of the Sun Belt upon Georgia Southern's arrival in 2014.

Men's basketball game results

Table shows results since both teams officially entered NCAA basketball competition with one another.

Men's soccer results

Georgia State leads Georgia Southern 27–11–7 in men's soccer competitions.