Troy-LSU game moved to November

The effects of Hurricane Gustav has pushed Troy’s scheduled game at LSU to Nov. 15.

The teams were supposed to play Saturday at 7 p.m., but the hurricane caused damage to Baton Rouge and Tiger Stadium on LSU’s campus.

The game will be played Nov. 15, which is when the teams had a common open date. Tickets for the game will be honored and a kickoff time will be announced at a later date.

“We were thinking this would happen all along,” Troy head coach Larry Blakeney said. “Certainly college football pales in comparison to what’s going on down there. We were just waiting for the word, really. We assumed this would happen.”

Blakeney said he was not privy to any talk of the schools moving the game to another location or moving the game to Sunday or Monday. The logical question of moving the game to Troy’s Movie Gallery Veterans Stadium, which seats about one-third of LSU’s Tiger Stadium, was brought up.

“(Troy athletics director) Steve (Dennis) had the nerve to ask them that,” Blakeney said. “Then they’d have to refund 92,000 tickets and I don’t think they wanted to do that.”

Dennis said he spoke with LSU officials, and that every avenue was talked about, but nothing as serious as moving the game to Nov. 15. Moving the game to another location, such as the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans or even to Troy, would be a logistical nightmare because of converting tickets over. Moving the game back a day or two wasn’t an option because the city is still in such a recovery mode.

“We just go with what the good Lord gives us,” Dennis said. “It was decided on by LSU with our total support for what needs to be done humanitarily.”

Blakeney said the team would practice today, work out hard on Friday, take off Saturday and resume preparation Sunday for next week’s home game against Alcorn State.

Injury update: If there’s any good news from this, it gives senior running back Xavier Moreland another game back that he would have missed after a collarbone injury suffered earlier this month.

“He’s doing well,” Blakeney said. “He’s always had Alcorn State as his target game for recovery, but he’ll probably try to practice the week after that game. He’s got to be pain free before he can play.”

Blakeney said junior defensive tackle Rashad Roussell injured his shoulder earlier this week in practice, but the hope is that he won’t miss any game time.

Still waiting word: Blakeney also said the school is still waiting word on the clearance of freshmen Josh Jarboe and Chris Anderson.

Jarboe transferred from Oklahoma after he was dismissed there. He had taken two summer classes at OU. Currently, he’s being treated as a transfer but the hope is that he’ll regain eligibility this year.

“We sent in more information yesterday that (the NCAA) requested,” Blakeney said.

Anderson has been held out of practice since Aug. 11 because of questions about high school transcript.

“That one right there’s hard to fathom,” Blakeney said.