In the first two decades of Georgia Southern football, the longest playoff drought was two years. Fast forward to Saturday, and it was four years and counting.

That all changed against South Carolina State.

To the fans in blue and white, it was a sweet, familiar taste.

“It was like seeing an old friend,” said Liz Ham. She was a member of the Southern Pride marching band in 2000, the last time the Eagles won a national title.

April Baggs was also part of Southern Pride during the Eagles’ last run of “glory years.” Members of the marching band simply considered returning to campus early from the Thanksgiving break to be a given.

“There is just something about pushing away from the Thanksgiving Turkey and knowing you’re going to the stadium,” she said. “Thanksgiving leftovers and a football game. That’s how I remember Georgia Southern.”

The Eagles last won a playoff game when they beat Maine in 2002. A week later, one of the most dramatic games in school history ended with a loss as the Eagles fell to Western Kentucky.

Georgia Southern appeared in the playoffs again in 2004 and 2005, but lost both times in the first round. Since, the Eagles have had three head coaches. Jeff Monken, the third in that succession, brought the Eagles back to the playoff in his first year. Again.

Monken was on the staff of Paul Johnson, who made the playoffs in his first year at Georgia Southern. It was 1997, and Johnson was replacing interim coach Frank Ellwood after Tim Stowers was fired in 1995.

Stowers had been on the sidelines when the Eagles won the 1990 national championship. He also, unfortunately, presided over the two-year lapse in 1991 and 1992, the Eagles’ previous-long playoff drought.

Kevin Jenny was a freshman at Georgia Southern in 1990. He remembered the feeling fans got when the program returned to the playoffs under Johnson.

“You just felt like the program was moving in the right direction,” Jenny said. “It felt like we were moving forward again. This game [against South Carolina State] feels the same way.”

Monken has replicated some of the success of 1997 with a team built almost from spare parts. Unlike the 1997 team, which was already running a variation of the spread option, Monken had to re-install Georgia Southern’s signature offense after four years of a vastly different offensive approach.

Like his first stint with the Eagles, Monken found himself facing an opponent from the MEAC in the first round of the playoffs. In 1997, it was Florida A&M. In 2010, the opponent was South Carolina State. Both games were big wins.

Jenny said he hopes the rest of Monken’s story turns out as good as things did under Johnson.

“It just feels right to see how he handles the team and to see them get better,” Jenny said. “You can see the difference.”

Monken himself deflected praise to his team.

“I don’t know if I have ever been around a football team that has prepared so hard, worked so hard and played with such effort and heart in my entire career,” Monken said. “Our guys don’t take days off in practice. They work hard out there.”

The parallels to 1997 continue next week when the Eagles travel to face William & Mary. Like that season, the second opponent for Georgia Southern will come from the Colonial Athletic Association. Georgia Southern fans hope parallels end there. In 1997, the Eagles lost to Delaware in the second round.

Georgia Southern also lost to William & Mary that season in the team’s second game.

No matter how it ends up in Williamsburg, Va., though, it will be hard to find fans who are unsatisfied with the results of the season.

“We’re back,” Baggs said. “Georgia Southern is back.”