ESPN SEC Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

	AP Photo/Bill Haber
	Members of the Louisiana National Guard arrive Friday at their staging area at the New Orleans Convention Center to help prepare for Tropical Storm Gustav.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The earliest kickoff for an LSU football game in modern-day history was the only option officials had with Tropical Storm Gustav looming out in the Gulf of Mexico.

It was strictly a safety issue, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is the one who made the final call to move the Appalachian State-LSU game up to 10 a.m. CT from its original start time of 4 p.m. There was also some discussion about postponing the game. That option, however, probably would have meant that the game would have never been played, LSU athletic director Joe Alleva said Friday.

"I think it would have been very, very difficult, if not impossible, to reschedule this game," said Alleva, who had been meeting with Jindal and other officials from around the state since Wednesday about what precautions would be taken if the storm appeared to be headed toward New Orleans.

The latest projection has the storm hitting sometime Monday night or Tuesday morning, and it could hit anywhere from the Florida coast to the Texas coast.

But to Jindal's credit, and no doubt remembering the path of destruction Katrina cut through the Gulf Coast in 2005, he wanted no part of evacuees fleeing north through Baton Rouge at about the same time the Tigers' season opener would have been ending on Saturday evening.

Traffic contraflow, which utilizes all lanes of the interstate heading in the same direction during the evacuation process, could begin as early as 6 p.m. on Saturday in Baton Rouge. Already, some people from the New Orleans area are undergoing voluntary evacuations.

"I think the governor did a tremendous job of listening to all of his advisors, and we all came to a consensus agreement that we could play this game, albeit we need to play early to allow for the safety of our citizens in a traffic flow," Alleva said. "I think the governor made a tremendous decision."

LSU coach Les Miles knows more than he cares to about dodging hurricanes. The Tigers had to move games, practices, just about everything in 2005 in the aftermath of Katrina. They played Tennessee on a Monday night at home.

This won't be that drastic, but playing a game this early in the morning won't be normal for anyone. Players will awake sometime around 6 a.m. and have pre-game at 6:30. The LSU team will get off the bus at 7:55 and walk down "Victory Hill" to Tiger Stadium.

A crowd of more than 90,000 is expected, and LSU officials are encouraging fans not to hang around after the game and instead get a head-start back to their homes before any evacuation begins.

On a personal note, I was here in 2005 for the LSU-Tennessee game. At the time, Baton Rouge was being used as the command center for evacuees, and LSU's campus was doubling as a medical triage for people injured in Katrina.

It was sobering to see so many families stranded and not knowing if they had a home to go back to.

Here's praying that nobody has to go through that hell again.