You know people in Texas are getting concerned about a hurricane when football games get postponed.
Saturday's game between my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Texas has been postponed for two weeks because of the dire warnings about Hurricane Ike.
Texans are already fleeing the coast ahead of the storm, which is predicted to make landfall sometime early Saturday. Current projections anticipate a Category 3 storm.
The Arkansas-Texas game is supposed to be played in Austin — which lies in Ike's path, even though Austin is roughly 200 miles west-northwest from Galveston on the Gulf coast — but updated projections seem to move the path of the storm away from Austin.
Anyway, the real concern is not so much the hurricane as it is both the unimpeded inland movement of evacuees from the stricken areas and the arrival of the remnants of the hurricane — the wind and the heavy rain — which are predicted to be felt as far north as this area (Dallas) during the weekend.
Both teams have open dates on Sept. 27, so the game has been tentatively re-scheduled for that day. It was originally scheduled to be televised, but that is now undetermined. The time of the kickoff also has not been decided.
The Sept. 27 playing date could still cause headaches for both schools, ESPN says.
"It's the same weekend as the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which annually brings thousands of people to the Austin area. Hotel rooms are difficult to find throughout Central Texas during that weekend. It might be difficult to accommodate the Arkansas team party — much less fans of both schools — because of the festival. And it would also make for a tough stretch for the Longhorns, who start the Big 12 schedule the following week."
ESPN also points out that "Arkansas will also find its schedule more challenging now. The Razorbacks had an open date between games against Alabama and Florida, but now must play the Longhorns in the middle of it."
Well, that's the same three teams the Razorbacks were going to play in the next four weeks, anyway. The difference is that the open date will be this Saturday, not two weeks from now.
But re-scheduling the game won't put the fans or players at risk — unless another hurricane pops up in late September.
ESPN reports that other Texas schools also have made new arrangements for games scheduled for this Saturday:
- The start of the Stanford-TCU game in Fort Worth has been moved up to noon (Central). The game originally was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. (Central).
- Air Force was originally scheduled to play Houston at John O'Quinn Field at Robertson Stadium in Houston. Because of the hurricane, the game has been moved to Gerald J. Ford Stadium at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
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