Two storms, pair of delays: Welcome to LSU’s world

The LSU Tigers will be spending another Saturday watching college football instead of playing it.

A season that held so much hope and intrigue for the Tigers, charged by a new coach and a talented team, has been stuck in neutral for most of September.

In between two hurricanes, two postponed games and a relocation, No. 3 LSU has managed to squeeze in one of the most dramatic victories in school history.

Here it is, just a week away from October, and the Les Miles era hasn’t even gotten to Game Two — yet the Tigers almost improved to 2-0 without even suiting up.

Nick Saban’s replacement will finally coach at Tiger Stadium when LSU plays No. 10 Tennessee on Monday night, a game originally scheduled for Saturday that the Volunteers were prepared to forfeit rather than risk traveling during Hurricane Rita.

“This is another turn in the road for this football team. It’s something that we have gotten used to over the past month,” Miles said Friday. “I think we’ll respond very well. The players are excited about getting the opportunity to open the home season on Monday night. I expect our fans to pack Tiger Stadium just as if the game were being played on a Saturday night.”

The way things have gone for the Tigers this season, all plans are tentative.

LSU’s season was supposed to start on Sept. 3 in Tiger Stadium against North Texas.

Hurricane Katrina changed those plans.

The North Texas game was postponed as the Tigers watched their campus fill with evacuees from storm-ravaged New Orleans. Championship aspirations were put on hold while players and coaches fretted over the safety of the family and friends.

With Baton Rouge in no condition to host a game, the Tigers began the 2005 season with a “home” game in Tempe, Ariz., against Arizona State. Quarterback JaMarcus Russell led a rousing comeback and LSU won 35-31.

The Tigers headed into an open date the next week with a 1-0 record and life slowly returning to normal. Football was again becoming the focus.

But as the Tigers and their loyal followers counted down the days to Saturday night’s game with the Volunteers, another powerful storm churned off the Gulf Coast and was starting to put Louisiana in its sights.

Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton contacted the SEC office earlier this week to talk about the potential for problems related to the storm. The Vols had planned to fly to Baton Rouge on Saturday morning because of a lack of available hotel rooms.

When Hurricane Rita’s path turned more to the north and east, Tennessee pushed harder for a change.

Hamilton did not want to put off making a decision until Friday.

Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer endorsed moving the game to the end of the season.

The SEC checked into making the conference championship game in Atlanta a week later to accommodate a Tennessee-LSU game, but there was a scheduling conflict with a convention, Hamilton said.

LSU was OK with playing Sunday, but Tennessee was concerned weather might still be a problem. Hamilton said Friday Tennessee was ready to forfeit if the game was not rescheduled for Monday night.

The final option was to cancel the game.

“With the No. 3 team in the country and the No. 10 team in the country, we felt like it was an important game that needed to be played,” Hamilton said.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive stepped in, and on Thursday the game was moved to Monday night.

Hamilton said the Vols were prepared to forfeit “if we felt like it would be unfair to our student-athletes and not safe for our student-athletes.”

Logistically, playing on Monday is going to be difficult on LSU and the already overstuffed city.

To put 92,000 people into Tiger Stadium on a work day that’s also a school day could make controlling traffic flow and parking a monumental task.

“We will now face significant logistical challenges, but we hope for the continued cooperation of our fans,” LSU athletic director Skip Bertman said. “Naturally our strong preference would have been to play during the weekend, but safety for student-athletes, fans and everyone else involved in a football game was the overriding factor for the commissioner.”

Playing on Monday means both teams will have less time to prepare for next week’s games. The Tigers travel to Mississippi State while Tennessee hosts Mississippi on Oct. 1.

So after all that waiting, the Tigers will now have to rush to its next game in their strange season.