Ten years ago this weekend, as Georgia State prepared to kick off its inaugural football season, the fledgling Panther program was thrust onto the national stage, appearing on the cover of the ESPN the Magazine college football preview issue, dated Aug. 23, 2010.
 

Shortly after Bill Curry was hired as the program's first head coach in June 2008, ESPN the Magazine began a series of articles chronicling the construction of the program. The articles covered events such early planning meetings by Curry's first staff, which included six assistant coaches hired for the fall of 2008; the program's first recruiting class, signed in February 2009; the first tryout and so forth.

In the spring of 2010, editors approached about the cover and began plans for a photo shoot. 

On a scorching summer day, a small army of photographers and technicians descended upon the team's practice facility at 188 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive for several hours of shooting, including players, Coach Curry, cheerleaders, GSU students, Pounce and members of the Georgia State Marching Band, which was also making its debut. Various other smaller shoots took place around campus over a two-day period.

But the cover design was a closely guarded secret. No one at Georgia State knew what image would actually grace the front until the issue hit the newsstands. The first hint might have been a request to the equipment manager to send a kicking tee to the ESPN the Magazine studios. Questions about eye black and the heights and weights of the entire roster (that cute little fellow entered the world at 7,908 inches and 24,214 pounds!) followed but still no details on the cover design.

Ten years later, it's remarkable to think that before it even played a game, Georgia State Football graced the cover of this iconic national magazine.