LSU Tigers

Alabama Football: SEC Reschedules LSU-Florida for Nov. 19

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Winner could decide SEC East, opponent for Alabama football in SEC Championship Game.

The LSU-Florida football game, postponed last Saturday due to Hurricane Matthew, has been rescheduled for Saturday, November 19, at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge under the terms of an agreement announced by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.

The game’s winner could well decide the SEC Eastern Division champion and opponent for No. 1 Alabama football (should the Crimson Tide win the SEC West) in the SEC title game

In addition, the Presidents and Chancellors have established the expectation for existing Conference policy to be revised to better define the process for completing postponed or interrupted contests and to grant authority to the Commissioner to determine the date and location of future games that may need to be rescheduled if the two involved institutions cannot mutually identify a date.

“It was important for us to come to a resolution. Each university had its own set of concerns throughout this process, however existing SEC regulations did not provide an avenue to resolve conflicting issues in a more timely manner,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said. “As I have repeatedly said, this game needed to be played. In the end, I want to give credit to the University of Florida for making concessions to move this year’s game to Baton Rouge.”

LSU has also agreed to play the 2017 in Gainesville, which was originally scheduled to be played in Baton Rouge. LSU will return to Gainesville in 2018 as the normal schedule rotation resumes.

The SEC Commissioner’s Regulations requires each football team play all eight Conference games in a season in order to be eligible to compete for a divisional title and play in the SEC Championship Game. Had the game not been rescheduled, Florida and LSU would have been ineligible to compete for the SEC title this season.

LSU was originally scheduled to play South Alabama on November 19 in Baton Rouge and Florida was slated to host Presbyterian on the same day in Gainesville. LSU and Florida will exercise cancellation clauses for those respective games.

“Lastly, I send thanks to Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Karl Benson and his membership which worked in collaboration and a great spirit of cooperation in presenting options as we worked through this process,” Sankey said. “I also thank Presbyterian for its understanding of this situation.”