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SEC Football

Brent Musburger: Why wasn’t Florida-LSU played at a neutral site?

Andrew Olson

By Andrew Olson

Published:

SEC Network broadcaster Brent Musburger was a guest on The Paul Finebaum Show” on the SEC Network Friday and it’s no surprise that the postponement of the Florida-LSU came up as a topic of conversation.

Musburger said he understood why Florida did not feel it could have the game in Gainesville, but he posed a question that’s been asked by many fans: Why not a neutral site?

“I’m disappointed that it was not scheduled somewhere this weekend,” Musburger said. “Now I certainly understand why Florida did not want to go to LSU. South Carolina tried that a year ago and how did that work out? However, it seems to me that a neutral site could have been negotiated with these two teams, both of them with great resources. (They) had the ability to take the game into the Georgia Dome. I know Atlanta’s on the road, the Falcons are out in Denver this week. Mobile, Birmingham, a neutral site.”

On Thursday, when Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley was asked about options to play the games outside of Gainesville or Baton Rouge, he stated simply: “There were none.”

He elaborated that the logistics of organizing a road game on short notice are too difficult.

“The resources in Gainesville are overstressed already,” Foley said. “You aren’t going to put your team on the road and still have the same issue about travelling equipment trucks through this kind of weather. Traveling a team without any security because security forces are being deployed where they should be deployed. Would there be gas for the busses? Could you get busses? There’s so many unknowns and you cannot plan and hope that come Sunday this would all work out.

“One thing our staff does a great job around here is plan for the worst and hope for the best. You can’t plan something and hope it all works out. Moving the football team in a day and a half, one thing people don’t realize is there’s a track record in this league with the South Carolina-LSU game a year ago, those conversations started Sunday, how that could happen, how that could work. A week before the game. It’s Thursday afternoon, you’re just not piecing that together, nor in our opinion would it be safe. We have a responsibility to our team and to our coaches as well. That just wasn’t something that we were willing to do.”

Andrew Olson

Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.

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