CORAL GABLES, Fla. _ It looks like Miami and Florida State are _ finally _ in the clear to play football on Saturday afternoon.
The Hurricanes and Seminoles, who had their Sept. 16 game postponed because of Hurricane Irma, have been monitoring the progress of Tropical Storm Nate, which on Wednesday was projected to potentially impact the Big Bend area of Florida, including Tallahassee.
But the latest projections for Nate have the system moving west of Florida and by Thursday morning, Tallahassee _ where the game is scheduled to be played Saturday at 3:30 _ was no longer in the storm's projected path. And so, school officials have opted to keep the game as scheduled for the 13th-ranked Hurricanes and Seminoles.
Miami, which is coming off a 31-6 win at Duke, is looking to snap a seven-game losing streak to the Seminoles. Florida State, meanwhile, is looking for its second win of the season after edging Wake Forest 26-19 last week.
The two teams were originally scheduled to play last month, but the game was pushed back to Oct. 7 after Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys on Sept. 10.
Both Miami and Florida State canceled their respective games that weekend and the Hurricanes went more than 10 days without practicing. Extensive tree damage and power outages on Miami's Coral Gables campus last month forced the team to relocate to Orlando for several practices ahead of the Hurricanes' 52-30 win over Toledo on Sept. 23.
Miami had just started getting into a more typical game-week routine in recent days before the threat of Nate emerged Wednesday and despite the storm threat and inclement weather in South Florida throughout the week, managed to practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, though two of those practices were held at the Dolphins facility in Davie.
"It doesn't affect anything in our preparation," Hurricanes defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said of Nate on Wednesday. "We'll go play if they let us play."
