Hurricane Irma blew through the Peach State leaving its share of destruction and disruption. The storm that impacted Georgia Sunday through Tuesday left trees down, streets flooded and thousands without power. Evacuees from Florida and Georgia sought refuge in north Georgia communities until all was clear to return to view damage to their homes.

The impact will be felt for some time to come. Football Fridays in Georgia did not escape being influenced by the hurricane as a large number of games in South Georgia were cancelled. With highways that connect the Florida with the rest of the state of Georgia jammed with evacuees, travel became difficult for teams and fans. Rather than risk it, coaches and athletic administrators decided it best to call the games off, most of which might not be made up later in the season.

The impact was felt as far away as Gwinnett County, where Buford was set to host The International School of Broward from Florida. Coach John Ford would love to reschedule, but knows the chances are slim and feels badly for his team. "These kids work hard year round,” says Ford. "There are only 10 guaranteed games, and you hate when they lose an opportunity to compete and play the game they love."

Down I-20 east in Thomson, the story will be the same for Rob Ridings Bulldogs who lost last week's showdown with Pace Academy due to traffic concerns. Thomson and Pace don't have any common dates open for the rest of the season, and with the Bulldogs already scheduled to be open the next two Friday nights, Ridings club is looking at going 3 weeks without playing a game.

"It's left us in a pickle," says Ridings. "We need to play and I'm working the phone and Internet trying to find an opponent that needs a game and is open on Friday the 22nd." Losing a home game at a place like Thomson is a really big deal. Football Fridays bring the entire community out to watch the Bulldogs play at the Brickyard. Losing the revenue from a big Friday night gate can have a far-reaching impact.

"We had a great game and big crowd at Pace last fall and we were looking to duplicate that," says Ridings. " We operate our athletics on what we get from football gates, so losing the Pace game will hurt our other sports."  

In Augusta, Aquinas had to cancel their date with Calvary Day, but thanks to both having an open date on next Friday, their game is back on. "We thought with all the evacuations going on lets just push the game back ", says Aquinas Coach James Leonard. "It's rough with us both big 1A schools. Keeping a game with an opponent like Calvary Day is huge because of the power rankings. "Call it "The Luck Of The Irish", to keep their date with Calvary Day, even though next week was to have been their bye week. Now Aquinas will have to play 8 straight games leading into playoff time.

Down at Waycross, Ware County caught a bit of scheduling luck as well. "Just so happens us and Northside (Warner Robins), this week's opponent, have the same open date, so we just moved it back to the 22nd, " says Ware County Coach Franklin Stephens, whose practice fields were left under water by Hurricane Irma. " The magnitude of losing a home game is unbelievable from the community perspective." 

It also brings into question the growing trend of Georgia high school teams scheduling games with opponents from another part of the state or from other states. The distance makes rescheduling virtually impossible. "That was my first thought," says Stephens. "I scheduled a team out of Atlanta (Grady), and lost it due to traffic concerns. Last year we lost a game with a Florida team for the same reason."

In addition to schedule issues, there has been time out of school and disrupted practice schedules to deal with.  "Our principal is great," says Leonard. "With the storm coming we held our Monday practice on Sunday. We let everybody stay safe on Monday and brought them back in Tuesday to keep on schedule."

Playing this week was impossible for Ware County, who didn't go back to school until Thursday and couldn't enter their building while evacuees were staying there. "They were still in the building," says Stephens. "Our administrator advised us that the evacuees were still using our locker rooms and showers." Knowing that many of his players were dealing with fallen trees and power outages, Stephens put things in prospective. " We're talking about playing games," says Stephens. "Those people (evacuees) don't have a place to stay or anything. At least we still have those things in place. What we must do is get back to work and keep our focus on the things that we can control.