Staying put

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Sep 11, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Game on. And best of all for LSU fans, it’s on at Tiger Stadium.

After several days of wait-and-see, LSU officials announced Wednesday that Saturday’s game between the Tigers and North Texas will stay put in Baton Rouge after weighing several other options in the wake of Hurricane Gustav and in anticipation of Hurricane Ike’s arrival.

“It is apparent that the storm will move far enough to the west that we can play the game in Baton Rouge,” LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva said in a statement released by the university’s media relations office. “Our prayers go out to our neighbors in Texas that they will stay safe.”

The game will kick off as scheduled at 7 p.m. after a 10 p.m. curfew in East Baton Rouge was lifted as of 6 a.m. today.

Plans to broadcast the game on TigerVision also remain intact, although some Cox Cable subscribers may not be able to get the game because of lingering damage from Gustav.

Regardless of when the game will be played, the where is settled now and that inspired a palpable sense of relief that there will be football on the LSU campus after the Tigers game against Troy was postponed in the wake of Gustav.

No. 7-ranked LSU (1-0) hasn’t played since opening the 2008 season by downing Appalachian State 41-13 on Aug. 30.

Since then the Tigers players and coaches — like everyone else — have tried to recover from the devastation rendered by Gustav and warily kept an eye on the threat of Ike following with another blow.

Meteorologists’ latest projections of Ike showed it sliding on a more westerly path the last few days, apparently bound in the direction of the Texas Gulf Coast.

Because Louisiana appears to have dodged a full-brunt hit from Ike, there will be football in Baton Rouge again this weekend, a notion Tigers coach Les Miles said was as important to his team as it will be to the anxious LSU fan base.

“Everybody on the team is excited about playing in Tiger Stadium on Saturday night,” Miles said. “Night games in Tiger Stadium, that’s LSU football and that’s one of the things that makes our program unique. It’s a sign that things are beginning to get back to normal around here.”

Miles also said this team will take the field with an added purpose.

“I think our team identifies very strongly with this state and those things that happen on the perimeter,” he said. “I think they’re affected by all that happened and feel obligated to play well.”