LSU’s football game against Florida this weekend has been postponed because of the impending landfall of Hurricane Matthew, the Southeastern Conference announced this afternoon.
The game was supposed to kick off at Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at 11 a.m. on Saturday, but the storm’s projected path—set to hit Florida’s Atlantic Coast on Friday—made hosting the game in Gainesville impossible, the SEC says in a news release.
The release says the two universities and the conference office will work to reschedule the game later in the 2016 season if possible. The two schools do not have a common open date on which to reschedule the game, but they will work to find a solution, including “the possible movement of other games on the schools’ schedules,” the SEC says.
“We had a very productive phone call today with a great spirit of cooperation between the universities’ presidents and athletics directors and it became clear that the University of Florida could neither host nor travel to a game this weekend considering the circumstances,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey says in a news release.
LSU and Florida explored other date and location options before deciding to postpone the game, and the SEC says LSU even offered to host the game. But the schools and the conference say the likelihood of the storm’s damage and a possible lack of available emergency personnel forced a postponement.
“The developments of the hurricane in the last 24 hours, the projected magnitude of its impact and the unknown aftermath of this storm have resulted in this decision to seek another date to play the LSU-Florida game,” Sankey says. “We have to be sensitive to the possible imminent disruption to the state of Florida and in particular the Gainesville and surrounding area.”
The announcement came after a few days of uncertainty surrounding the game’s status. Officials from both schools were supposed to announce a decision earlier today, but they kept pushing back the deadline.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Sen. David Vitter sent a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott urging the state to intervene and either move or postpone the game, The Associated Press reports.
“I can assure you that moving a football game to another location to ensure the safety and well-being of several thousand people will be the easiest decision you will make today,” Vitter told Scott in the letter.
Matthew was upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane late this morning, with top sustained winds of 140 mph. The storm was blamed for more than 100 deaths in Haiti alone, and officials in Florida urged residents to prepare for what could be widespread and massive damage.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
