Eastern Michigan's football game with Howard postponed, rescheduled for noon Sunday - with free admission

Posted on Sat, Sep 3, 2011 : 8:11 p.m.

by Phil Lozen, for AnnArbor.com

The Eastern Michigan football game against Howard was postponed because of severe weather Saturday night. The game, originally scheduled for 7 p.m., will be played at noon Sunday at Rynearson Stadium. Admission will be free.

Saturday's kickoff was originally moved to 8:30 p.m. because of thunder storms. The teams later agreed to a 9:30 p.m. start, around the same time the next set of storms arrived, causing the eventual postponement.

“Both coaches talked and agreed they didn’t want to kick off past 10 p.m.,” Eastern Michigan athletics director Derrick Gragg said. “Safety was, of course, our utmost concern. We had a feeling this was a possibility, but we wanted to wait as long as possible.”

Gragg said the school was in communication with the Mid-American Conference offices throughout the evening. League officials told him they weren’t aware of any MAC rules prohibiting kickoff following a certain time, meaning the decision was up to EMU and Howard.

The final set of storms were bad enough that officials were suggesting fans still waiting out the storm in the nearby Convocation Center sit tight until that storm passed. The EMU Marching Band took to the floor of the Convocation Center to entertain those that choose to wait the storm out.

It was the first Eastern Michigan game postponed since 2001, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks caused a Sept. 15 game at Akron to be postponed. That game was made up as the last game of the season, on Nov. 24. Eastern lost 65-62 in triple overtime.

The last time EMU had a game canceled that wasn’t made up was in 1916, when the season ended after four games due to a smallpox outbreak.

Tags: Eastern Michigan sports,