The stadium was spackled and painted before the Aug. 31 home opener, but football programs cannot patch up their culture with grit and tenacity without the coach leading the way.

Elliott knows the way. In spring practice, the Panthers offense lined up for play “75,” an off-tackle run with an extra running back — none other than Coach Elliott. The ball was snapped, the running back took the handoff, and Elliott stayed on the hip of the runner as they darted into the hole together. Step by step, Elliott coached the running back on reading blocks and being assertive, not just elusive.

“I wasn’t sure if it was a live play,” Payne says. “My feeling is that if we had hit Coach, he would have liked it.”

A coach-speak cliché is in order: “Walk the talk.”

Elliott knows his words don’t mean anything if he doesn’t back it up. There is a lot at stake for Georgia State this season, and he must mean what he says. That’s why he runs in the trenches with his players.

Over the last five years, college football has all but invited the public’s distrust. The avalanche of TV money. The academic fraud. The coaches and administrators who make grandiose, tearful pronouncements only to cover problems up or allow them to continue. Football coaches at Division I schools are presumed guilty; they have to prove their program’s honesty. Some might see the Panthers, along with nearly every other football program in the country, as a drag on their schools’ academic missions.

While Elliott was building trust with his team by running a play and building trust with faculty and administrators with that 3.03 GPA, Brian Kelly, senior associate athletics director for external affairs, has been building trust with communities through the university and city of Atlanta to get fans inside those historic brick walls.

This season, stadium capacity stands at 25,000, and Kelly is pushing alumni to do their share to fill those seats. 2017 graduates received a graduation gift of two free tickets.

“We need alumni to be the change with us,” Kelly says. “We’ve laid a foundation. There’s excitement around the new stadium — more than ever, even after we went to our first bowl game.”

Kelly and his team are talking to alumni, faculty, students and the neighborhoods around Georgia State Stadium. Kelly and other university representatives have attended meetings in each adjoining neighborhood to address concerns and drum up support. One weekend, they brought an inflatable bouncy castle with them and invited neighborhood children to come romp with the Panthers.

Most stadiums built for the Olympics get demolished or fall into ruin. Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Stadium, which became Turner Field and is now Georgia State Stadium, is already one of the longest sustainable stadiums in the history of the Olympics. And now, thanks to Georgia State, the empty parking lots around the stadium will soon join the surrounding neighborhoods as vibrant blocks of housing, retail and office space that introduce amenities and investment the area hasn’t seen in decades.

The players sense an opportunity.

“Coach tells us we’re part of history,” Payne says. “The Olympics were here. A lot of Hall of Fame baseball players were here. I was a huge Braves fan growing up. And now, I’m part of all that history. That’s a special feeling.”

The new stadium will allow Georgia State football to keep track of its history moving forward. There is space for the Georgia State Athletics Hall of Fame, and placards of retired numbers can line the lower bowl — the same space that held up “44” for Hank Aaron, “31” for Greg Maddux and “3” for Dale Murphy.

Elliott doesn’t want to leave Georgia State’s football program as he found it, so he’s laying the foundation for collectible memories. Elliott understands the new stadium is an epic change, but he knows fundamentals and relationships will make sure there is something worth preserving once the shine has worn off.