Georgia Tech, just days after revealing their 2014 football schedule, is already in need of making an adjustment. Tulane has chosen to back out of a four-year scheduling agreement with the ACC school, leaving the Yellow Jackets with a late schedule vacancy to fill for the second week of the upcoming season.
Tulane’s decision to opt out of the agreement, which started with a 2014 home game for Tulane, was based on delays in construction of Tulane’s new football stadium. Because the two schools could not find an alternate date to schedule a game for the 2014 season, the schools agreed to have Tulane pay the cancellation fee to opt out of the deal. According to FBSchedules.com, Tulane will have to pay a fee of $300,000 to Georgia Tech.
“We are extremely disappointed that Tulane has decided to cancel the four-game series with Georgia Tech, beginning with our game in New Orleans next fall,” Georgia Tech senior associate athletic director Ryan Bamford said in a release from the school. “The timing of Tulane’s decision (after the ACC schedule was released earlier this week) is especially tough for us.”
Georgia Tech now has a scheduling hole on September 6 and 27 to work with to fill a 12-game schedule. It would be preferable for Georgia Tech to fill the September 6 date and keep the 27th open. Otherwise, Georgia Tech would be set to play 10 straight weeks through ACC play. Georgia Tech also has a bye week scheduled for November 22, which gives the Yellow Jackets an extra week to prepare for rival Georgia in the regular season finale. Georgia Tech also already has one game scheduled against an FCS opponent, and it would be undesirable to schedule a second even on short notice.
Tulane has a schedule that only has two games locked in as of now, as the school awaits their first conference schedule from the American. So why not just move the game to Georgia Tech? Tulane already has two non-conference games on the schedule, at Duke and at Rutgers. Both games are also in September. Adding a third road game against a school from a power conference would be pretty rough considering schools want to have at least six home games, if not seven (or eight?).
UPDATE (9:00 a.m., January 25): Tulane has announced the game is back on and will be played in the Supderdome if needed.