Georgia Tech made the decision to play its Jan. 29 game against North Carolina in wintry conditions. However, the continuing winter storm and the icy roads made Tech's decision making different Wednesday for its game against Boston College. The school, in consultation with the ACC and Boston College, postponed it until Thursday.
“Once we figured out that it would be really hard for us to get our essential people there, like (scoring) table staff and medical staff and security and stuff like that, we didn’t want to produce a game that wasn’t going to have all of those professional people there,” senior associate athletic director Ryan Bamford said.
ACC policy dictates that if both teams and game officials can make it to the arena safely, the game should be played. While Boston College arrived at its Midtown hotel Tuesday, game officials were staying by Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“They couldn’t get to MARTA because there’s no cabs,” Bamford said. “They didn’t feel great about driving. While they were here (in Atlanta), it was still a situation where we’re going to put them in harm’s way, as well. All those things added up. We decided it’s probably not worth it.”
The athletic department issued a news release Tuesday stating that the game was expected to be played as scheduled, but the icy roads Wednesday morning and the forecasts for continued precipitation changed the thinking. That was one difference between Wednesday's game and the North Carolina game, as the storm had passed by the time of that game and roads were not as treacherous.
From early Wednesday morning on, Bamford was in communication with officials from the ACC and Boston College, as well as Tech's athletic department and the Institute, before presenting the school's recommendation to postpone.
Scheduling-wise, the postponement worked out about as well as could be hoped. Tech will not play its next game until next Tuesday. Boston College’s next game is Sunday at home against Notre Dame. The Eagles can still have two days to prepare for that game, not an unusual turnaround time. They arrived earlier than scheduled Tuesday to beat the storm to Atlanta and practiced Tuesday and Wednesday at McCamish.
The hope is that temperatures will rise enough Thursday to melt the ice and make roads passable.
It is the first Tech game to be postponed due to weather since a road game at Clemson January 2011. A home game against Fordham in December 2010 was cancelled due to the Fordham’s not being able to leave New York due to weather conditions.
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