Florida State Considers Options as Dorian Looms

As football season approaches, so too does hurricane season — much to the chagrin of teams caught in the potential storm line. 

The Tallahassee Democrat reports that Hurricane Dorian, projected to make landfall on Sunday night, could impact the start of Florida State’s football season for the fourth year in a row. The National Hurricane Center currently projects Dorian to hit Florida’s east coast as a Category 3 storm.

With impact looming, Florida State is considering several options for how to handle its season opener, scheduled for Saturday night against Boise State at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville. Those options include: 

• Moving forward as planned. The Democrat reports that this is the least likely option at the moment. Despite the storm’s anticipated landfall not being until Sunday, more southerly parts of the state may evacuate. With the rush of traffic into Jacksonville, holding the game at the scheduled time would put unnecessary pressure on the city.
• Moving kickoff to noon. Moving the start time up by seven hours would likely give the city time to avoid any additional traffic caused by evacuations and still allow the game to be played on the same date.
• Canceling the game. Canceling the game would cause a variety of headaches for both schools. Make-up dates would be hard to come by this season, as the teams do not share a common bye-week, though if neither team makes its conference championship game they could agree to play during championship weekend. 

Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for counties along Florida’s east coast.