I got word at about mid-week that Florida Atlantic was looking to see if we could move or cancel Saturday's game because of understandable concerns with Hurricane Irma.
I told Chris McIntosh, our deputy athletic director, "Let's get a hold of their AD (Patrick Chun) and let them know if they got stuck here, we'd do whatever was necessary to accommodate them."
Some different contingencies were brought up and considered after games involving other Florida schools were canceled or postponed. But those options just weren't going to work out.
Instead, we said, "Come up and play the game at 11 a.m. on Saturday and if you can't get back, stay here. It may be the safest thing anyhow. We'll take care of you."
It wasn't finalized until Thursday. We were still worried whether they'd get out of Florida on Friday. I understand they may have been one of the last flights to leave before the airport closed.
Because they took a bigger plane out of Florida than they would have normally for the travel party, the coaches were able to bring their wives and children with them to Madison.
We connected all of our people with all of their people: our strength coaches with their strength coaches, our equipment people with their equipment people, our video people with their video people.
Our coaches' wives even hosted a tailgate for their coaches' wives.
Photo: Wisconsin Badgers
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