Shawn Elliott is used to working at places where football isn't that important.

By the time he leaves, it's all that matters.

After coaching as an assistant for 13 years during the most successful era at Appalachian State, when the Mountaineers won three straight Division I-AA national championships and pulled an historic upset over Michigan in 2006, Elliott joined Steve Spurrier's staff at South Carolina.

Once again, the school where he coached saw an unprecedented run - three straight 11-win seasons. And because Spurrier was the head coach, the Gamecocks became an offensive giant in the SEC.

When Georgia State athletic director Charlie Cobb parted ways with former head coach Trent Miles, who led the Panthers to their first bowl game in 2015, he knew he had the perfect fit to help turn GSU into a football school.

Cobb was the athletic director at App State for nine seasons and led Mountaineer athletics when Elliott was an assistant. Both understand football culture. Both know how to build it.

"I really learned that culture in a head football coach through Jerry Moore up there. He just really taught myself and his assistants just kind of how to create a football culture," Elliott told the Savannah Morning News in a phone interview. "When Charlie came in as the AD in 2005, he changed the persona of how to promote the football culture and promote it to our students and our community and give us the very best he could in facilities. He really does one heck of a job of creating that type of environment and really understands where football stands and how important it is and building that relationship with our community and student body."

Elliott believes he can follow Spurrier's blueprint in bringing a winning program with a high-flying offense to the recruiting hotbed of Atlanta.

"There's an opportunity to do what we were able to do at South Carolina. To have the greatest seasons in South Carolina history was certainly something special to do, and we did it three years in a row. I think we can achieve those things here at Georgia State, I really do."

And does he think he has the resources to do it at a program that won two games in the span of three seasons from 2012-2014?

"There's no question at all about that," he said. "I wouldn't be sitting in this chair right now talking to you if that wasn't the case."

If you win, they will come

Cobb is giving him everything he needs. A mover and a shaker, Cobb was one of the driving forces behind turning Turner Field into Georgia State Stadium, the Panthers' new home since leaving the Georgia Dome.

Now it's Elliott's job to fill the new stadium with a passionate fan base.

"I think we've got a ways to go in that aspect, but as everyone knows, you have to put a winning product on the field to get an exciting following," he said. "That comes in due time. There weren't crowds of 35,000 showing up to see Appalachian games back in 1991, I can assure you of that. But you go win three national championships, you start building something like that, it starts becoming a fun activity and a lot of bragging goes behind winning. You know how fans are - they love to brag about their football team."

Wins are starting to come. After defeating new rival Georgia Southern for the third straight time Saturday, the Panthers are tied for second in the Sun Belt standings and are just one win away from going to their second bowl game in three years.

They've won five of their past six, making the season-opening loss to FCS Tennessee State almost feel like an afterthought.

You could say the players have bought in to Elliott, but the coach said he's no salesman.

"We don't sell anything to our players, and they don't have to buy into it," he said. "We give them a plan, we put it in place, and either they follow it or they move on. They can like it or leave it. All in all, most everyone sees exactly what we're trying to accomplish and how we're trying to better our football program through discipline, hard work, effort, unselfish play, togetherness, family and football."

New and worthy GSU

If people in Statesboro aren't paying attention to what's going on in Atlanta, they'd better start.

The Eagles' fan base still seems to treat the idea of Panther football as a joke. Get them in while you can. While Georgia Southern is searching for a new coach to fix the damage of the Tyson Summers era, the Panthers aren't waiting around. They've quietly been getting better and better over the past several seasons, and 2017 could be the breakthrough season for a program that only started seven years ago.

"The second year, they were much improved," Eagles interim head coach Chad Lunsford said prior to Saturday's game about Georgia Southern's matchups with Georgia State. "There's been a transition there and a new coach. I haven't been able to watch a lot, but I've watched some between yesterday and today, and I see a team that plays hard and has some energy. I think that has a lot to do with their head coach. They're starting to believe, and obviously their record shows that."

Elliott could gain a major recruiting advantage as Georgia Southern tries to pick up the pieces. Throw in a winning program along with all the Atlanta area has to offer, and selling Georgia Southern becomes a much taller task, especially when the Eagles are mired in the dark ages. Watch Georgia Southern during a midweek game on ESPN2, and the Eagles get blown out. Meanwhile, Georgia State beats South Alabama, and ESPN gives the nation a free tour of its new facilities. Where else can a player share a locker room that Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran used just a year ago?

"There's been a buzz from everywhere," Elliott said. "Our last Saturday home game, we had over 270 show up for our recruiting day. There were some guys committed to a lot bigger places. We continue just to spread the word about Georgia State, the city of Atlanta and what opportunities are here for a young man that can come in here and spend the next four or five years playing the great game of football and living in one of the greatest cities in the South."

The Georgia Southern fan base may not want to admit it, but Georgia State is on its way to becoming a worthy rival and a team the Eagles will have to reckon with for years to come.

Nathan Deen covers Georgia Southern athletics for the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at 912-652-0353 or nathan.deen@savannahnow.com. Follow him on Twitter @NathanDeenSMN.