West Virginia football will not be playing their Week 3 game against NC State as scheduled. Dropping the game altogether might be the best option.
After starting the season 2-0 with wins against Tennessee and Youngstown State the Mountaineers have built up a bit of momentum heading into Week 3. The schedule, as of right now, lists a road trip to Raleigh, North Carolina to play the NC State Wolfpack. That game will not be played — a scenario which wouldn’t be all that bad for West Virginia.
Raleigh is in the projected path of Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 storm barreling down on the lower East Coast. Landfall is projected to be sometime Thursday or Friday, making a Saturday game on a water-logged campus a tertiary concern, at best. Several other games in the area have already been postponed and/or canceled.
There is an opportunity to play the game later in the season if schedules get tweaked in mid-October, but this near-term solution seems to be the best case scenario, at least from a safety perspective.
On the football side, NC State plays in the ACC. With a win over an SEC program under their belt and the grind of Big 12 play looming, having an extra game doesn’t seem all that valuable right now. Will Grier‘s Heisman campaign isn’t going to take a ding from one less road game, and WVU fans didn’t exactly have Sep. 15 circled on their calendars at the onset of the season.
While one weekend without college football doesn’t sound promising, it’s important to think of the bigger picture in this situation. West Virginia still has their eyes set on a Big 12 Title and a College Football Playoff berth, not just a road win over NC State.