LSU and Florida are playing in 2016 after all, and now it’s a Tigers home game

On Nov. 19, LSU and Florida will play the football game that had been scheduled for last Saturday in Gainesville but was postponed because of Hurricane Matthew.

The game will be played in Baton Rouge, marking a short-term victory for an LSU program that had been loath to give up a scheduled home game that weekend. Now, the Tigers don’t have to do that.

Kickoff for this game has yet to be set, but OnlyGators.com has reported that it will be no later than 3:30 p.m. (ET).

This reads like an initial setback for Florida, in that the Gators now have to play a difficult conference opponent on the road instead of at home. But the Gators will now play LSU at home next year, instead of in Baton Rouge as previously planned.

Florida’s not entirely pleased ...

... despite LSU athletic director Joe Alleva earlier claiming the Tigers had offered the Gators options of kickoff times all throughout last weekend, and SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey reporting LSU had offered games in Baton Rouge, Mobile, New Orleans, and elsewhere.

This is also a win for the SEC, which has ensured it won’t face any of these scheduling nightmares that could’ve emerged from Florida or LSU winning out. “Had the game not been rescheduled, Florida and LSU would have been ineligible to compete for the SEC title this season,” the SEC said in a statement.

Both Florida and LSU had scheduled games for Nov. 19, and the teams didn’t share an open date on which they could easily play the game. Florida was to host Presbyterian that day, and LSU was to host South Alabama. The cancellation of those games will require payouts from the Florida and LSU sides.

The SEC, using insurance, will assist both teams in paying those cancellation fees.

In celebration of the game being back on for 2016, let us sim this game on NCAA Football Mascot Mode.

Here’s the statement from the SEC:

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.”

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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.

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“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 their understanding of this situation.”