With Hurricane Joaquin either headed toward the United States or out into the Atlantic Ocean but still impacting the Eastern seaboard, depending on which computer model is the weather flavor of the minutes, the system has the potential to impact a handful of college football games this weekend.
In fact, the threat of it has already impacted one game.
Due to expected adverse weather, Michigan announced early Thursday afternoon, the start time for its game Saturday against Maryland in College Park has been moved up to noon ET. The Wolverines and Terrapins had originally been scheduled to kick-off at 8 p.m. ET.
The stated reason for the move is “the potential impact of Hurricane Joaquin.”
“The weather experts are still dealing with uncertain probabilities for the course of Hurricane Joaquin,” UM athletic director Jim Hackett said in a statement. “Thus we remain vigilant on developments and will err on the side of safety for all participants and fans.”
As a side effect of the Michigan-Maryland move, the Big Ten announced that “Nebraska’s game with Illinois, which was scheduled to kick off at 2:42 p.m. (central), will now kick off at 3:02 p.m.” The delay is to accommodate any potential weather-related delays that could arise during earlier games.
Other games that could potentially be affected by Hurricane Joaquin include, among others, Pittsburgh-Virginia Tech, Louisville-North Carolina State, Boston College-Duke, Florida State-Wake Forest and the huge Notre Dame-Clemson matchup. Thus far, though, none of those games have been impacted, although that could obviously change over the next 24-48 hours as the system moves closer to landfall, if that’s indeed its eventual path.
In fact, one of the schools hosting one of the games mentioned seems to have adopted a “bring it on” attitude when it comes to the weather.
Worsham Field can drain up to 16 inches of rain per hour.
— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) October 1, 2015
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