Hurricane Irma aftermath forces cancellation of Indiana-FIU game

Not surprisingly, Hurricane Irma and her swath of destruction continues to have an impact on college football.

Indiana announced that, after discussions with officials from Florida International, the university supports FIU’s decision to cancel their Week 3 game in Bloomington. Below is a portion of the school’s release on the latest Irma-related development:

[IU athletic director Fred] Glass and FIU Athletic Director Pete Garcia have been in regular communication since Sunday about the situation, and with FIU classes being canceled, several FIU players and coaches being from the South Florida area, along with the considerable logistical hurdles to overcome in traveling to Bloomington, the decision to cancel the game was made late on Monday evening. The two programs plan to schedule a game between the schools at Memorial Stadium at some point in the future.

The Hoosiers have a bye in Week 6 (weekend of Oct. 7), and the football program is hopeful they can cobble together a game for that weekend. Given the timeframe, such a game would more than likely involve an FCS team.

Five of the seven recently-completed Week 2 games involving FBS teams from the state of Florida were canceled ahead of Irma making landfall. FIU’s home game against Alcorn State, originally scheduled to be played in Miami, was moved to Birmingham, Ala. Florida Atlantic’s game against Wisconsin in Madison over the weekend went off as originally planned, although the Owls will be holed up on that campus indefinitely.

In addition to the FIU-Indiana game, Georgia Tech’s Week 3 game against Central Florida has already been canceled. The Miami-Florida State game scheduled for this weekend was moved to next month over the weekend. There’s already talk that Illinois’ game Saturday on the road against South Florida could be moved to Champaign or outright canceled, although there’s been no official word either way.

Still up in the air as well are FAU’s home game against Bethune-Cookman and Florida hosting Tennessee in Gainesville. Monday afternoon, the SEC issued a statement on the status of that latter contest.

The Southeastern Conference is in communication with the athletics departments at the University of Florida and the University of Tennessee after Hurricane Irma passed through the Gainesville area overnight and early this morning.

“Now that the storm has passed through Gainesville, the University of Florida is working with local authorities to assess the effect of the storm on the campus and the Gainesville community, at the same time ensuring the appropriate security and local officials are available to host a game,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.