Corey Clark

Tallahassee Democrat

With the destructive and potentially catastrophic Hurricane Irma churning toward the state, the Florida State athletic department has already altered its football schedule once.

Will it have to do it again?

The Seminoles moved up their game this Saturday against Louisiana-Monroe from 7 p.m. to noon. The following game, against rival Miami, is still set for Sept. 16 at 8 p.m.

But that date could be up in the air since there's no way of knowing, for sure, how devastated the Miami area will be after Irma hits — and how quickly the Hurricanes football team will be able to reassemble and begin practicing for FSU.

Both teams share Oct. 7 as an open date on their schedules.

Miami was forced to cancel its game this weekend at Arkansas State and has not practiced since Tuesday.

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With Irma expected to rip through South Florida this weekend it's impossible to predict how much damage will be done to the Miami practice facility or when players, coaches and support staff who evacuated the area will be able to return to Coral Gables.

"We know we're going to play this Saturday (against Louisiana-Monroe)," FSU deputy athletics director Karl Hicks said on Thursday. "After that, you would just continue to monitor the situation with the ACC and Miami."

Hicks said the administration has not yet had any preliminary talks with the conference or the University of Miami about a potential schedule change.

And that he is expecting and hoping to play the game as scheduled, but did note that sharing the same open date would make it much easier to move if it had to be.

From a competitive standpoint, if the Miami team can't have its normal amount of practice and prep time it would seem the most equitable decision would be to postpone the game until early October.

But if it was moved to Oct. 7 that would give Miami a difficult turnaround with a Thursday night game against Georgia Tech scheduled for just five days later.

Hicks said the ACC offices would obviously be "heavily involved" in a game being rescheduled.

Miami athletic director Blake James went on 560 WQAM earlier this week to talk about the impact of Irma. Here's what he was quoted as saying in the Miami Herald.

“We won’t practice again until after the storm passes,’’ James said. “Based on the extent of what Irma does to our campus and our community will probably dictate when we practice again and where.

“It’s so hard to know what the impact of this storm is going to be right now. It’s premature to tell you we’re going to be ready to go on Sunday night, starting game week of FSU, or on Tuesday. Normal practice week for Mark is Sunday, Monday off, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we’d be moving up.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with the storm and how that will impact our practice with Florida State, but that’s not the concern right now.

"Right now it’s really making sure that we’re taking care of all the kids in our program, that they’re with their families or in a safe spot and just ready for the storm as much as anybody can be.”

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