The Georgia Southern football team woke up on Monday looking forward to a Saturday home game where it could shoot for its first win of the season.
Instead of the home cooking and the extra rest that comes along with a home game, the Eagles instead found themselves in the same position as they were last week. They were on a bus. Headed to Alabama. And this time, they had to share the road with a few thousand others looking to flee from a hurricane.
Georgia Southern had the benefite of being on the road - followed by a long week - when Hurrican Matthew rubbed up against the coastal Georgia area last season. This time around, the Eagles weren’t as lucky. Just after the team returned from Auburn last weekend, university officials started tracking the potential path of what is now Category 5 Hurricane Irma.
And even though the storm is now projected to deal a bigger blow to the brunt of Florida and middle Georgia than to Statesboro, early week projections were grim enough that today’s game was shipped out to Legion Field in Birmingham.
“We’ve had people in our (conference room) for more than 24 hours,” Georgia Southern athletics director Tom Kleinlein said. “Some of them have been there the entire time. It’s been a tense and ongoing process and our goal was always to do the best thing for our school and for our student athletes.”
Georgia Southern’s decision was based partly on the constant updates on the projected path of the incoming storm, but the timetable for making a choice was accelerated by other factors.
As was the case for last year’s Hurricane Matthew, portions of university property are being used as staging areas for emergency personel. And regardless of today’s weather, a trip to Paulson Stadium would have been very difficult for most as it was announced that Interstate-16 would begin contraflow operation at 8 a.m. Saturday.
Luckily, the Eagles have some helping hands.
“I heard from several (athletic directors),” Kleinlein said. “There was UAB, of course, and we also had Troy reach out to offer any help they could. Atlanta would have been a great place to move everything, but the hotels were already booked there and would have only made things more difficult for everyone.”
The task of moving Eagle operations spans wider than just today’s football game.
Along with the football team, all student athletes for all fall sports have joined the migration to Birmingham. While no other sports are scheduled to play in the area anytime soon, the uncertinty of any team’s ability to get in and out of Statesboro in the wake of Hurricane Irma made it necessary for all teams to get away from the potential trouble and wait for their next move.
“We took all of our fall-sport athletes into consideration,” Kleinlein said. “We were also thinking about their personal situations So many of our student athletes come from Florida and south Georgia, and we wanted to address their needs. In the end, we thought it was best to take everyone and tell their families to come and join us.”
As of Friday, the path of Irma had shifted westward and Birmingham could also be in the line of the storm. No additional information is currently known about the future plans of the Georgia Southern teams that have travelled to Alabama.