re: How quickly LSU forgets UT 2005

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee was ready to forfeit to No. 3 LSU if Saturday night's game in Baton Rouge had not been rescheduled for Monday night because of Hurricane Rita.

Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton said Friday the No. 10 Volunteers were prepared to take such action ``if we felt like it would be unfair to our student-athletes and not safe for our student-athletes.''

Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive said Thursday the game would be moved for safety reasons. LSU officials preferred to have the game Saturday or Sunday.

``We will now face significant logistical challenges, but we hope for the continued cooperation of our fans,'' LSU athletic director Skip Bertman said. ``Naturally our strong preference would have been to play during the weekend, but safety for student-athletes, fans and everyone else involved in a football game was the overriding factor for the commissioner.''

Rita was headed toward the Texas-Louisiana coast and forecast to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday. Baton Rouge was under a tropical storm warning on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

Hamilton contacted the SEC office earlier this week to talk about the potential for problems related to the storm. The Vols had planned to fly to Baton Rouge on Saturday morning because of a lack of hotel rooms. Now they will travel Monday morning.

When Rita's path turned more to the north and east, Tennessee pushed harder for a change. Coach Phillip Fulmer was against having the game on Saturday and advocated moving it to the end of the year.

The SEC checked into making the conference championship game in Atlanta a week later to accommodate a Tennessee-LSU game at the end of the regular season, but there was a scheduling conflict with a convention, Hamilton said.

Hurricane Katrina already has forced changes for LSU's football team. The Tigers' season opener was postponed and their home game against Arizona State two weeks ago was moved to Tempe, Ariz.

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We are not going to do anything that puts our athletes at risk," Fulmer said after practice.
ve been in contact with the airlines, been in contact with the different folks at the weather service, and the indications I get is it's not going to be safe," he told the Associated Press.
"We've bent over backward to do everything we can to make this happen including going down the day of the game. Obviously, if they're sending people out of Louisiana, I don't know why we would be going in. My (university) president will not allow that to happen."
LSU officials, however, citing logistical and parking concerns that will come with having about 92,000 fans on campus during a school day, had lobbied to play the game Sunday.

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