Hurricane Harvey has jostled the plans for a number of college football teams across southeast Texas, but Texas State announced Tuesday its opener against Houston Baptist will be played as scheduled on Saturday night. The Bobcats and Huskies will meet at 6 p.m. local time and broadcast on WatchESPN.
“First of all, I want to say that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families affected by Hurricane Harvey,” Texas State AD Larry Teis said in a statement. “We encourage our fans to support relief efforts for the victims. We have reached out to HBU’s Athletics staff and both schools agreed to play the game at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Bobcat Stadium.”
Texas State’s home of San Marcos, located roughly equidistant between Austin and San Antonio, has experienced heavy rainfall but avoided the flooding that has so devastated the coastal areas of Texas.
Texas State cancelled classes and university events last weekend, and some areas on campus did experience minor flooding. Some 500 San Marcos residents experienced power outages as well, according to the University Star.
“At this time, while our prayers are with all those affected by this storm, we believe we will be able to get to San Marcos in time for kickoff on Saturday,” HBU AD Steve Moniaci said. “We are all going to be thinking about those we know who have been so heavily affected by the overwhelming devastation we have all seen, but the game itself will hopefully be a good diversion to what many of our families here in Houston and throughout south Texas are experiencing.”
Houston Baptist launched its football program in 2013 and has competed in the Southland Conference of FCS since 2014. The Huskies are 11-29 all-time, and the Texas State match will represent HBU’s second game against an FBS opponent (their first was a 42-10 loss to UTEP last November.) Texas State is looking to improve upon a 2-10 mark in its second season under head coach Everett Withers.
As for other Houston and southeast Texas-area games: Houston-UTSA has been canceled; Prairie View A&M-Texas Southern has been postponed; No. 13 LSU-BYU has been moved from Houston to New Orleans; and Sam Houston State’s home date with Richmond has been moved to Baylor’s McLane Stadium on Friday night. No. 23 Texas will host Maryland at 11 a.m. local time Saturday as scheduled; Lamar will visit North Texas as scheduled Saturday evening; and Texas A&M is on the road at UCLA on Sunday (7:30 p.m. ET, FOX). Rice is off this weekend.