College Football Poll, Keeping An Eye On Wilma

Hurricane Wilma Schedule Alerts
by Mike Mitchell
Updated 11/11/05 1:42 pm edt

The Middle Tennessee at FIU game has been rescheduled for December 3 in Miami. The game was postponed from October 29 due to the impact Hurricane Wilma had on South Florida.

The storm affected schedules for two weekends.

Prior to its arrival, Wilma forced the rescheduling of several football games the weeken of Otober 22nd. Georgia Tech at Miami was moved to November 19th. That change also caused the Miami at Wake Forest game to be moved from November 17th to November 12th. West Virginia at South Florida was changed to December 3rd. Tulane at Central Florida was played a day early on Friday.

Other Florida teams were unaffected because they were playing out-of-state. FIU played at Troy in Alabama on Thursday night. FAU, based in Boca Raton, was at Arkansas State in Jonesboro on Saturday. Florida State played Duke in Durham, North Carolina on Saturday. Florida was idle.

After the storm passed, damage to the Orange Bowl lighting system required the North Carolina-Miami game on October 29th to be moved up from 3:30 to Noon to avoid playing in darkness. As a result, the Clemson-Georgia Tech game was moved to 3:30. The Middle Tennessee-FIU game was postponed due to infrastructure problems.

Katrina and Rita had already left their mark on the U.S., causing devastation and, least importantly, the juggling of football schedules for several teams. Tulane's players and staff have been displaced from the school since Katrina struck on Labor Day weekend. Navy's game at Rice, wiped out by Rita, was made up this past weekend.