BOCA RATON – Hurricane Delta’s track toward the gulf coast won’t prevent FAU from departing for Mississippi on Friday as planned and playing as scheduled on Saturday.
But a clear back-up plan for FAU’s game at Southern Miss has emerged.
Sources tell OwlAccess.com that if Hurricane Delta tracks further east than projected the schools could elect to delay the 4 p.m. kickoff until later in the evening or even push the game back until Sunday.
If the contest is moved to Sunday an announcement could come as early as Thursday evening.
Projections earlier in the week had Hurricane Delta making landfall near New Orleans on Saturday with the projection cone traveling though Mississippi.
That forecast prompted LSU to relocate its scheduled home game against Missouri to Columbia, Mo.
The projected path shifted west toward Texas over the past 24 hours and Hattiesburg, Ms., is no longer within the probability cone.
Hurricane Delta is expected to made landfall Friday evening near the Louisiana-Texas border as a Category 2 storm packing sustained 105 mph winds.
Officials from both athletic departments and Conference USA have been monitoring Delta’s track throughout the week and discussed several contingency plans should the forecast track require a change in the schedule.
Once possible scenario involved moving the game, potentially to FAU. Such relocation appears unlikely at this point.
Five FAU football games have already been either canceled or postponed already this season. The season-opener at Minnesota and the home-opener against Stony Brook were canceled months ago, as was a scheduled November game against C-USA foe Old Dominion, which elected not to play football this season.
A COVID-19 outbreak prompted the postponement of the game against Georgia Southern until Dec. 5, provided FAU doesn’t reach the C-USA championship game. Contact tracing at South Florida, FAUs Week 4 opponent, forced the postponement of that game. No makeup date has been announced.
FAU (1-0, 1-0) defeated Charlotte 21-17 on Saturday in the Owls’ de facto season opener. Southern Miss (1-3, 1-0) defeated North Texas on Saturday to earn its first victory of the season.
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