Moments after Florida officially announced that the kickoff time for the Northern Colorado game has been moved to Noon ET, athletics director Scott Stricklin addressed the media.
“We spent the last couple days having a lot of conversations with the people on campus, local government authorities, emergency personnel. Currently the latest forecast shows that the tropical conditions will probably hit here Sunday morning,” Stricklin said in his opening statement. “There's a chance they could start hitting here Saturday night, so playing the game at 7:30 obviously wasn't a smart move. Moving it to Noon hopefully will allow those who can travel get here and get back in a safe place before nightfall and before serious conditions hit this particular area.”
Stricklin understands that attendance will likely be low for a Gators home game, and urged fans to consider their safety and others’ safety when deciding whether to come to The Swamp on Saturday.
"We understand there's a lot of people who normally would come to a Gator game this weekend in parts of the state that just aren't going to be able to make it,” he said. “We completely understand that. We ask everyone to consider their own safety first and the safety of others making any kind of plans this weekend because certainly that's the most important thing.”
Stricklin was asked why Florida did not follow UCF’s lead and move the game to Friday night when the Golden Knights will host Memphis. He cited concerns about hotel availability for those seeking shelter.
"One of the reasons we thought it was really important to play in the game in addition to not having people travel at night is hopefully freeing up some of the pressure on hotel rooms so people fleeing from other parts of the state evacuating can use those,” Stricklin said.
“And there’s a lot of concern about hosting a home football game on a school day on this campus,” he added. “We have 50,000 students on a weekend we use the parking for game days, on a weekday we’re not, so that’s a bit of a concern. And so we just felt like Saturday noon was probably the smartest thing given the timing of when the storm effects might hit here.”
Earlier on the SEC coaches teleconference, head coach Jim McElwain noted that the Gators are giving up their usual team hotel. Stricklin encourages fans to leave hotel rooms open if possible.
“We encourage any fans out there who don't need those rooms for Friday or Saturday night to cancel those reservations so that they can be needed for more important issues,” Stricklin said.
Moving the kickoff has also changed the broadcast arrangement. The game will now be streamed exclusively on SEC Network+, Watch ESPN and the ESPN app.
“A couple of things on that, No. 1 being a non-conference game probably is not as heightened a concern for our TV partners as it normally would be if it were an SEC game,” Stricklin said. “Basically the conference office handled all those conversations on our behalf. We’re not going to be able to be on a linear network because the SEC Network already has a game at that time. We will be on the streaming devices, which obviously more and more people are getting accustomed to using. It'll still be available through streaming.
“With other cancellations, there might be a window that one of our TV partners can put us on over on a linear channel, but we're not anticipating that at this point. At the end of the day, the safety thing was our overriding concern. Not the TV thing."
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