As Hurricane Matthew began to threaten the state of South Carolina, Gamecock fans everywhere were reminded of last year’s football game against LSU, where the “home” game was played in Baton Rouge. With a home matchup against rival Georgia scheduled for the date when rain could flood the Midlands in addition to the Lowcountry, many started to assume South Carolina would surrender another home game to a different location.
Associate athletic director Charles Bloom and the rest of the department’s administration set out to avoid that situation, eventually pushing the game back a day to keep it in Williams-Brice Stadium.
“We had two objectives going into the weekend,” Bloom said Friday. “One was to have the game without taking away the emergency personnel that’s needed to help on the coast. And two, we wanted the game to be in Columbia.”
Wednesday, Gov. Nikki Haley announced that the state would be offering no support to the football game if played this weekend in Columbia, meaning the state troopers that normally contribute on game day will not be available. To fill in the gaps, officers from local sheriff’s departments, city police departments and SLED will be assisting in managing traffic and other security duties throughout Sunday’s game.
“We’ll have resources, we’ll have people and we’ll be able to put on a game that will have 80,000 people there,” Bloom said.
Because of the availability of extra officers, the decision-making process was far different this time around compared to last October with the LSU game. Last fall, local authorities were unavailable to the athletic department, as officers were needed to save people from catastrophic flooding in the Midlands. Because the expected rainfall and flooding is projected to be much less than last year, officers are able to perform normal gameday functions.
“We don’t feel from an emergency personnel standpoint that we’re hindering that,” Bloom said of the need for officials in the coastal regions. “We have the local authorities to support having the game here.”
However, if the effects of the hurricane are more significant in the Midlands, the athletic department still could cancel the game, as the press release that announced the change in kickoff time promised the university would continue to monitor the situation.
The decision to schedule kickoff for 2:30 p.m. Sunday was made for a number of reasons, though conflict with the NFL was not one of them, as any Sunday kickoff will have that problem. Bloom said that 2:30 became the optimal time as it allows people to return home at a reasonable hour before school or work on Monday, while also being late enough to allow fans to attend church in the morning if they so choose. The game will still be aired on the SEC Network.
Head coach Will Muschamp was “kept abreast” of the potential options for moving the game time, but Bloom said the coaching staff had no input in the final decision.
“Whenever the football office wanted to make a suggestion, obviously it went through Ray (Tanner) and it was handled,” Bloom said. “For the most part, it was university administration and Coach Tanner that was managing it from the university perspective.”
With the kickoff now earlier in the day, fans will have less time to tailgate, though it won’t be nearly as big of a safety risk to tailgate on Sunday as it would’ve been on Saturday. Bloom said the concern now is that there will be standing water in many of the grass and dirt lots, which could be a hazard.
“You just have to use common sense,” Bloom said of fans who may have large puddles in their tailgate spots.