The biggest game of college football’s sixth week is still scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ABC, and a hurricane is going to come ashore a few hundred miles to the south less than a day before kickoff.
No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama is on. That has been the message from Tuscaloosa all week, and as of Thursday afternoon the forecast finally started cooperating.
Isaias strengthened into a hurricane and sat about 400 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River on Thursday morning. The National Hurricane Center projects a peak of 110 mph on Friday afternoon, which is a strong Category 2, with landfall near Gulf Shores around midnight Friday.
The Forecast Turned Saturday Morning Into the Problem
That timing matters more than the storm’s strength. Alabama meteorologist James Spann wrote Thursday that the weather looks favorable for Saturday night, with the worst of it hitting Tuscaloosa from Saturday morning into the early afternoon. By the time the lights come on at Bryant-Denny, the system should be moving out.
Alabama Athletics said in a Wednesday statement that kickoff remains as scheduled and that it is in close contact with the National Weather Service, the SEC office and Georgia. The SEC has said it is monitoring forecasts and talking to affected schools, which is what the league says every week. Nobody has floated moving the game to Friday or Sunday.
The realistic risk is a lightning delay, not a postponement. ESPN is still putting College GameDay inside Coleman Coliseum at 9 a.m. ET, which tells you how confident the people with money on the line feel.
Both Coaches Already Moved On
Kirby Smart called the weather “beyond my control” and said his staff is game-planning for multiple conditions. Kalen DeBoer has Alabama running wet-ball drills for the second straight week. That is the correct response, and it is also the only one available.
A sloppy field would be a bigger deal if these were two grinding defensive teams, and they are not. Georgia is 5-0 and leads the country at 51.4 points per game, with Gunner Stockton completing 75.5 percent of his throws for 13 touchdowns and one interception. Alabama is also 5-0 and 3-0 in the SEC, and sophomore Keelon Russell has averaged 323.3 passing yards over the last three games with 13 total touchdowns and no picks.
Rain punishes the team that needs explosive plays more, and that is probably Alabama. Russell’s best work has come on deep developing routes. Stockton has been handed a 27-point average margin against Arkansas, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt and has barely needed a fourth quarter.
What It Means for Georgia
Smart is 2-7 against Alabama as Georgia’s head coach, and the Bulldogs have not won in Tuscaloosa since 2007. He got the most recent one, a 28-7 wipeout in last December’s SEC Championship Game, which snapped a three-game skid in the series.
Winning in this building is the one line left on his resume, and a storm that scrambles the night actually helps the visitor. Alabama’s crowd is the variable most affected by weather, and a soaked, half-emptied Bryant-Denny is the version Georgia should want.
The game will be played. Pack a poncho and expect a delay.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.