A potential hurricane is forming in the Gulf of Mexico that it is headed straight for Alabama. This storm is expected to make landfall Friday night or early Saturday morning and hit Tuscaloosa throughout the day Saturday.
The SEC already has their eyes on this storm and they know that it could potentially impact Georgia's game at Alabama this weekend. So far the SEC has said the game is going on as scheduled, but the conference has three options at their disposal to save this game from being canceled if the storm ramps up like projections indicate.
1. Play the game on Sunday
The simplest solution to save this game would be to play the game on Sunday. This is the best option because it not only allows the storm to pass, but Georgia and Alabama don't have to make any big logistical changes for this week or in future weeks.
The SEC has done this a couple times in the past when severe weather was impacting a game. In 2016 they moved Georgia's game at South Carolina to Sunday and in 2004 they did the same when LSU was visiting Florida.
Georgia already has their plans in motion to head to Alabama with all of their equipment, team and coaching staff. Alabama also hasn't been preparing this week to travel on the road which would make changing locations even more difficult for them. So the easiest option likely is to push the game back one day and let these teams play on Sunday.
Sure this means they have one less day to prepare for their games the following week, but that is an easy sacrifice to make all things considered.
2. Change locations
Another decision the SEC could make is to still play the game on Saturday but change locations. The SEC has two recent examples of moving the game to the visiting team's stadium instead (2016 Missouri vs LSU and 2015 LSU vs South Carolina) so they could opt to play this game in Athens. Alabama would probably have to agree to this, but who knows if they'd be willing to sign up for a road game at Georgia.
The SEC could also find a neutral location to play at instead. Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta may seem like the obvious choice but an MLS game is already scheduled for Saturday night, but the SEC could see if any other conference teams like Texas A&M, Oklahoma, LSU or Ole Miss would be willing to let them play there since they don't have home games this week.
Changing locations this late in the week would be difficult to pull off, but the SEC has set a precedent that they are willing to do this if needed.
3. Move the game to a different week
The final option the SEC has is to have Georgia and Alabama play on a different week. It may seem like the SEC would have to juggle a bunch of other schedules and move multiple games around, but in reality this would actually be quite simple.
Instead of playing this weekend Georgia and Alabama could call this week their bye week. The SEC could then move this game two weeks from now on Oct. 24 which is Georgia's current bye week. Alabama already plays Texas A&M that day, but if the Aggies agreed they could use this weekend as their bye week and play Alabama on Oct. 31 where their bye week is currently scheduled.
Texas A&M would have to agree to this change, but this would hardly impact their season with their bye week only occurring one week sooner than originally scheduled.
The last thing the SEC wants to do is cancel this game without rescheduling it. This not only is potentially the biggest game of the season in the conference but it will have a huge say in who is playing for an SEC Championship later this season. The SEC did cancel a Florida game in 2014, but that was a non-conference game against Idaho so it didn't have any implications on the SEC season and hardly impacting Florida.
The SEC needs to play this game, but they might have to get creative in figuring out how to make it happen.
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