The Southeastern Conference elected to scratch this afternoon's Florida-LSU football game in Gainesville and chose to push tonight's Georgia-South Carolina game in Columbia to Sunday afternoon.
Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity does not believe the league's two situations impacted by Hurricane Matthew should be compared.
"The big difference between the Gainesville scenario and the Columbia scenario is that Gainesville is right in the middle," McGarity said Friday morning. "They're going to have winds of 40, 50 or 60 miles an hour in the city of Gainesville, whereas Columbia will get some wind and some rain, but nothing to the magnitude that they're going to experience in Gainesville. The two really aren't that similar, and, in fact, they're very different.
"If the security services were not able to be provided up to the standards South Carolina felt comfortable with, I'm sure the decision would have been different from the decision we reached."
South Carolina coach Will Muschamp announced Thursday night on his weekly call-in show that the game between the Bulldogs (3-2, 1-2 SEC) and Gamecocks (2-3, 1-3) would be moved to Sunday. The SEC then sent out a release stating kickoff time at Williams-Brice Stadium would be 2:30 p.m. and the game still will be televised by the SEC Network.
McGarity said "everything was on the table" regarding the border battle, including a cancellation, and the biggest factor throughout was not taking up hotel rooms.
"We did not want to be in the position of having anything to do with displacing evacuees," he said.
Georgia athletic officials and players are hoping to stay tonight at a federal facility on the South Carolina campus.
McGarity said he offered Sanford Stadium early in the week and believes it could have been an option had South Carolina not been able to provide law enforcement and other services needed to operate game-day situations. When asked if additional venues to Williams-Brice Stadium and Sanford Stadium were considered, McGarity said, "I'm not aware of any other discussions."
Because South Carolina's open date is next Saturday and Georgia's open date is the Saturday after that, McGarity said there were not any makeup opportunities.
LSU athletic director Joe Alleva said his school offered to pay for a charter flight and hotel rooms for Florida but that Gators officials declined. Alleva said Friday that he does not believe the game will be made up, which could catapult Florida into first place in the SEC East should Tennessee lose today at Texas A&M and next Saturday against Alabama.
The Georgia-South Carolina decision simply means the Bulldogs will delay their travel schedule one day and collide on a day typically reserved for the professionals.
"People understand the dynamics," McGarity said, "and they understand it's not something anyone wants to do."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.