Florida-Eastern Washington will be played after all! (Photo credit: Kim Klement, USA Today)
The Florida-Eastern Washington football game is being moved to Sunday at noon. The game will take place at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, 24 hours after it was originally scheduled to kick off.
The game will not be on television. However, the game will air on SEC Network+, as was the initial plan when it was scheduled on Saturday.
The move was made as Hurricane Ian roared through Cuba on Tuesday morning, refused to slow down over land, and even gained more steam as it reconnected with the Gulf Of Mexico. The storm is currently projected to attack the Gulf Coast areas of Tampa Bay, Bradenton, and Sarasota from Wednesday night through early Friday morning. The fear is that Ian will make landfall as a major hurricane, with wind speeds of over 130 mph according to various models.
As the storm raged on, speculation built about the fate of this Florida-Eastern Washington game. Ian’s path was never very easily predictable, but some spaghetti models had the storm ravaging the Gainesville area- which threw all kinds of obstacles into this game’s path, not the least of which was the Eastern Washington team’s inbound flight.
Technically, this is the second time that the Florida-Eastern Washington game has been moved. The Gators and Eagles were supposed to play in 2020. That game was wiped off the board due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The two sides then agreed to reschedule the game for 2022.
This time around, the game is only being postponed by 24 hours.
Best wishes to everybody in the storm’s path. Stay safe.