Hurricane Helene began building speed Wednesday with Tallahassee, Fla., and the campus of Florida State University projected to feel the full force of the storm late Thursday night.
Head coach Mike Norvell and the Seminoles are scheduled to play in Dallas at SMU on Saturday night and could change travel plans from the current itinerary, which calls for the FSU team charter to leave Florida on Friday morning. The team marching band bus to SMU was canceled earlier in the week.
“We are still monitoring all things with the storm,” Norvell said. “We have tentative plans in place, and we have A, B and C (contingency plans). If anything needs to be adjusted we will go from there.”
Florida A&M, also in Tallahassee, postponed its scheduled home football game this weekend with Alabama A&M to Nov. 29.
Norvell didn’t indicate Florida State could reschedule its road trip to SMU, but said Tuesday there was only one priority.
“The No. 1 thing is the health and the well-being of this team and the staff and everyone that’s involved. We have our plans if we need to adapt and adjust,” Norvell said.
FSU closed its campus on Wednesday. The University of Florida announced it will close its Gainesville campus starting Thursday, postponed a soccer match scheduled for Thursday against Tennessee and canceled Friday’s swim meet against Nova Southeastern.
While the Gators’ football team is on a bye week, other college football games could be impacted. Parts of South Carolina could see “10-15 inches of rain” according to the National Weather Service.
No. 2-ranked Georgia visits Alabama on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, which is about 320 miles northwest of Tallahassee. But Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart said this week the Southeastern Conference and weather authorities are heavily involved in monitoring Helene in the event changes to pregame events and travel out of Athens would become necessary.
Some models projecting the path of the hurricane place Atlanta and Athens in front of Helene. While the University of Georgia is 275 miles from Tallahassee, the Weather Channel indicated Helene could become a Category 3 hurricane with significant risk from sustained winds inland to Atlanta gusting over 80 mph and potentially record rainfall.
Georgia Tech said its Atlanta campus was open on Wednesday and any changes would be communicated via the school website and social media channels. The Yellow Jackets are off this week. Further north, warnings are already active in Knoxville, Tenn., where the Volunteers are also on a bye week.
“We’ve been following it and watching it with the SEC office and our in-house people at Delta,” Smart said. “It looks like it’s trending more and more eastward which may affect us, but less and less affect towards the game. My biggest concern is the travel and our travel arrangements. Being able to get there in a convenient way is my concern right now.”
–Field Level Media