North Texas vs. LSU to Proceed as Scheduled; Arkansas vs. Texas Cancelled

I suspected yesterday that the Arkansas vs. Texas game might not be able to happen.  I guess that means that Arkansas gets a week break before they get to suffer a humiliating loss, which I suppose is better than suffering two humiliating losses in a row.

It's so strange to have two big storms in the Gulf so early in the season this year.  This one, Ike, looks like it's going to wreak havoc on Texas.  If there's one thing we've learned, it's not to mess with a big hurricane.  Around the country, people stopped paying attention to Gustav when it didn't create a new Apocalyse, but even in Baton Rouge, which is fairly far inland, far enough to significantly weaken a storm, it did severe damage to the point that now over a week later Baton Rouge still isn't exactly functioning as normal.

That said, the decision to play the game this weekend in Baton Rouge is a sound one.  Yes, hurricanes are unpredictable to a certain extent, but much less so than they used to be.  Models are constantly tweaked and improves, and computer models that were wildly inaccurate five years ago are much better now.  Data collection improves with time and the models improve with time.

Just in my recollection, Hurricane Ivan went almost exactly as it was predicted almost a week out.  Katrina's path was more-or-less accurately predicted.  Gustav's path was pretty darn closely predicted also.  

Now we have Ike, and now approximately 5 days away from landfall the models, which have moved around a fair bit, have been steadily saying it would hit the coast of Texas for the last two days.  The longer it goes, the more reliable those models will get.  We can be reasonably sure that the eye of the storm will pass quite far away from Baton Rouge, and while Southeast Louisiana will get some wind and rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, it should not be enough to necessitate the kinds of evacuations that would really disrupt a Saturday game.  

In fact, the only big disruption that should be seen in Baton Rouge is that evacuation flow from the Galveston and Houston area will likely be going in the direction of Baton Rouge.  But like I said with Hurricane Gustav, if we jimmy up the schedule every time a hurricane is anywhere near us, we might as well cancel football because we will be canceling or moving games every year.  Or in this case, twice in a year.

I'm looking forward to watching this game, even though it's the sort that ONLY an LSU fan could actually want to see.