Lane Kiffin Confirms Date of Alabama-Ole Miss Could Change Due to Hurricane Delta
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — On Wednesday's weekly Southeastern Conference coaches' teleconference, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin revealed alternate possibilities of when the matchup between his Rebels and the University of Alabama could be moved to, due to Hurricane Delta.
The game is originally scheduled for Saturday at 5 p.m on ESPN at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.
"We've heard three options," Kiffin said. "One would be Friday, one would be Sunday and one would be later in the year. I don't think we'll know until tomorrow for sure. I think they're kind of holding off with the most accurate weather we can get. Nothing has changed so far."
Both Alabama and Ole Miss have the same bye week and open date of Nov. 7, but the conference has designed the bye weeks to be flexible due to COVID-19.
Where it gets tricky is, the Crimson Tide is set to take on Georgia next weekend inside Bryant-Denny Stadium, and playing the Ole Miss game on Sunday would make it a short week to prepare for the Bulldogs.
Consequently, moving it to the weekend of Nov. 7 would mean Alabama and the Rebels would have to play eight consecutive weeks in an already shortened conference-only schedule.
Which would leave the options to Friday or still playing on Saturday as scheduled, where the forecast is detecting a 90 percent chance of rain and wind gusts upwards of 20 miles per hour.
"It's out of our control," Kiffin said.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, the league office officially announced its plans to move the LSU-Missouri game from Baton Rouge, La. to Columbia, Mo., also moving the kickoff time to 11 a.m.
“Due to the pending impact of Hurricane Delta on Louisiana and the surrounding area, it is in the best interest for the safety of everyone involved to move the game to Columbia,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a press release. “It was critical to relocate the game to an SEC campus where SEC COVID-19 management protocols are in place and readily applied."
