Florida’s Week 5 matchup with Eastern Washington is still planned to take place on Saturday in Gainesville, but the university will be closely monitoring Hurricane Ian, which is expected to impact the west coast of the state over the week.
The university’s athletic director Scott Stricklin took to Twitter on Monday to announce the update. The last time Florida dealt with inclement weather was in 2017 when Hurricane Irma hit. That game was moved up to a noon start time initially, but both programs agreed to cancel the game after mid-week projections showed Irma moving up the middle of the state.
The hope is that UF won’t have to cancel once again, but hurricanes can take sudden turns that force a change of plans. The good news is that the university should know how the storm affected the community by Thursday afternoon or evening.
Currently, Saturday’s football game between UF-Eastern Washington is scheduled as planned. The UAA is working with campus, local & state officials to closely monitor Hurricane Ian and its potential impact on Gainesville and the surrounding communities. @FloridaGators #GoGators
— Scott Stricklin (@ScottStricklin) September 26, 2022
There’s also the question of EWU’s travel arrangements. If the team is set to arrive on Friday, there’s a good chance they deal with some flight issues. Right now, the situation is one big what-if scenario.
The thing is that Florida needs to play this game badly. This is a team that the Gators should be able to dispatch easily, and they need to prove themselves after two early losses and a near loss to USF. This isn’t the kind of game that’s likely to be made up, but it’s a tricky problem to solve with the money involved in these kinds of visits.
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