Dan — short for Danterious — Ellington vividly recalled the moment a Georgia phone number popped up on his cellphone in 2017.
At the time, Ellington was one of the top junior-college quarterbacks in the nation at Itawamba Community College (Miss.) and ranked second in the NJCAA averaging 356.8 passing yards per game. When Ellington heard then-first-year head coach Shawn Elliott’s South Carolina drawl, little did he know how much that conversation would change his life forever.
“I was actually on another visit when I got the call that he was going to offer me,” Ellington said.
Ellington was on an official visit to Murray State when GSU reached out. Since that quick exchange over the phone, Ellington couldn’t keep Georgia State and Elliott’s full-ride scholarship offer out of his mind.
“I went on another visit after I left Georgia State and all I kept thinking about was Georgia State,” Ellington said.
Ellington, who was playing with a knee injury in the Panthers’ 38-17 loss to Wyoming in the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl on Tuesday, pledged to Elliott at a time when Georgia State won its first bowl game in program history, the 2017 Cure Bowl, and was still considered the new guys on the block in the Sun Belt Conference.
Considering the Atlanta-based GSU didn’t field a team until 2010 and have recorded only three winning seasons in that time, the Panthers are still newbies, but that’s what makes the football program attractive to 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds looking to play college football.
As the senior Ellington put it, he saw it as an opportunity “to make history” and be a trailblazer for future Panthers. Why be just another blip in a program’s media guide when the next generation of Georgia State players can say, “I want to be the next Dan Ellington?” History and tradition is what makes college football great, but so does lacking it, apparently.
“There wasn’t much history at Georgia State … so it was mainly to be the first to do something at Georgia State and I wanted to be a part of it,” said junior defensive tackle Dontae Wilson. “That’s what we’re here for is to make history.”
That was Elliott’s mentality from the minute he accepted the job.
“I love doing things for the first time. I love setting standards,” Elliott said. “From when I was a player to when I began coaching, it was always about ‘What do you want to be remembered for?’ And what a great opportunity to take over a program at that time. It was 7 years old, only went to one bowl game and had never won a bowl game.”
This year’s Georgia State team wasn’t the first to appear in a bowl game and the Panthers already have a postseason win, but 2019 might’ve been the most memorable year the program ever had.
For one, the seven wins is tied for the most in program history, which has only happened under Elliott. Secondly, Georgia State shocked the college football world to its core when the 25-point underdogs upset Tennessee in Knoxville.
“The entire college football world knew who Georgia State was. ... Everyone was talking about what our football program had done and you can’t put a price tag on that. And the way we did it, it was no fluke,” said Elliott. “We were a strong-minded football team that went in there and played very, very well. It’s done wonders for us.”
A newer program also includes lack of alumni support and boosters are tough to find so facilities and other important elements to a football team, which doesn’t work in Elliott’s favor in recruiting.
“From the time I was hired, the biggest thing was probably facilities to tell you the truth. We’re in a talent-rich area in the city of Atlanta, in the Southeast. Atlanta is the capital of college football, it just is. Our facilities, when we took over, wasn’t what it needed to be,” he said.
Now, GSU has practice and training facilities for all on-campus athletes to use along with housing for football players, which is a few minutes’ walk from Georgia State Stadium. The $950,000 Georgia State received for beating an SEC team in the season opener also helps with funding.
Money aside, Elliott has elevated the program, and while it may be the third choice in Georgia behind the Georgia Bulldogs and Georgia Tech, the Panthers have shown signs of significant progress. Now, Georgia State has the 89th-best recruiting class in college football for 2020, per 247Sports.com, which trails USC by 10 spots and the UA by 19.
"We signed an exceptional recruiting class, you have some of the biggest wins in school history, we went 5-1 at home, there's a lot of firsts that we've done here. People have taken notice of Georgia State football and they will continue to take notice. As long as they're doing that, the recruiting is going to be good," Elliott said.
Elliott later added, "You can really lay a plan in place to individuals and get them excited to become a founding father so to speak.”
On New Year’s Eve and the final day of the 2010s, the Panthers couldn’t put the bow on their historic season, but the “founding fathers” raised the standards for a team that started this decade as an FCS team.
"I can write a book on each one of them. ... They did everything in their power to lead this football team to be successful and I'm very proud of all those guys," Elliott said. "And I'll never forget what they've done for us. ... We played on national TV. People were watching us today.
"There were a lot of teams that weren't playing today who didn't have the opportunity to play. This season is going to make a big difference for us."
