Georgia seeing rise in new college football programs

In nine years as Furman's head football coach, Bobby Lamb always relied on talent from the state of Georgia to flesh out his recruiting classes.

"If we signed 18, at least nine of them were from the state of Georgia. It was at least 50 percent or better every year," said Lamb, a Commerce native. "That was for two reasons: No. 1, the quality of the football and the quality of the education, and No. 2, the proximity to our school. Really No. 3, from a budget standpoint, there's a high school on about every corner in the city of Atlanta, so it certainly helped you out as far as your recruiting budget."

Now that he has moved from coaching at his South Carolina alma mater to Mercer, Lamb will attempt to use Georgia's fertile football talent base and significantly larger population to his advantage.

"To put it in perspective, the state of South Carolina has 4.2 million people. But there are seven I-AA (college football) programs, two Division I programs and two Division II, and that's in a small state," Lamb said. "There's four million, five million - depending on where you draw the line - in Atlanta alone."

But as he begins to build his first recruiting class as head coach of Mercer's fledgling program, Lamb must compete against several new in-state programs for Peach State talent.

Seven Georgia colleges have launched football programs or announced plans for a football program since 2005. While that added competition likely won't impact the state's only Football Bowl Subdivision schools, Georgia and Georgia Tech, it could make things interesting for the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, Division II, Division III and NAIA programs.

"I'm sure it's going to be a little more difficult. There are going to be more people seeking those kids," said Phil Jones, head coach at NAIA Shorter, which was the first new football domino to fall when it began competing in 2005. "But really in this state, the high school football is so good, the programs are so good, that I don't think there's gonna be any kind of limit on players that can play."

Despite the wealth of talent available within the state - Georgia ranked fifth among states with the most players on NFL rosters at the start of last season - the total of state colleges that fielded football teams hovered around 10 for decades.

Legendary coach Erk Russell fielded his first official team at Georgia Southern in 1982 and led the Eagles to massive success in a matter of only a few years. However, no Georgia college attempted a similar move for the next 23 years, despite the sport's explosion in popularity within a growing state.

"That's kind of weird," Lamb admitted. "Georgia Southern started (football) back in the early '80s, but then there was this big, huge gap where nobody started playing football. Shorter picked it up, LaGrange picked it up, Mercer decided to do it. It's crazy that they had that big of a gap, but the state just continued to grow in population."

Shorter played its first game in 2005, followed by NCAA Division III LaGrange College the next year. Other small schools like Reinhardt College and Point University (formerly Atlanta Christian College) have announced plans to start programs in the next two years.

"I think probably us starting, which was a unique situation for that size school, that people were encouraged to at least take a look at it, and many of them have gone on to do it," Jones said.

In addition, the medium- and large-sized schools that are finally making the move could make things much more interes

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