MORGANTOWN - West Virginia and East Carolina will play football this weekend, come Hanna or high water.

When they might play and where, though, remained up in the air Wednesday night.

Officials from both schools are monitoring weather reports and the path of tropical storm Hanna in the Atlantic Ocean and are all but resigned to the fact that the storm will have an impact on Saturday's game. Whether the impact will be a change of game time, a change of venue or simply wet and windy conditions at the scheduled time and place could be decided today.

No. 8 West Virginia is scheduled to play East Carolina at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Greenville, N.C.

"We'll talk [Thursday], probably late in the day,'' West Virginia athletic director Ed Pastilong said Wednesday night. "The bottom line is we can't create an alternate plan until we know what's in front of us on Saturday. And we won't know that until Saturday.''

Still, the schools will try to make an educated guess by the end of today so that plans can be made.

As of Wednesday night, West Virginia officials had not changed its travel plans for the weekend and it seems unlikely that they will. The team is to leave Morgantown at 11 a.m. Friday, bus to Clarksburg and fly to Greenville in time for a mid-afternoon walkthrough at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. The school has, however, investigated alternate airports to fly into Friday if its Delta Airlines charter needs a longer or wider runway due to winds.

As for the game itself, a number of possibilities exist, including playing the game at the appointed time and place. And although moving it to another location further inland in North Carolina can't be ruled out, it seems a more likely scenario would be keeping the game in Greenville and moving the kickoff to sometime Sunday.

Pastilong refused to speculate, instead pointing to the myriad considerations that have to be taken into account. They include, but certainly aren't limited to, the effect a change would have on fans and television (the game is to be telecast on ESPN).

"But let's cut to the chase. At the end of the day, safety is the No. 1 consideration,'' Pastilong said. "Television, the impact on fans, the problems it creates for hotels and charter companies and everything else; that all takes a back seat to the safety of everyone involved.''

According to tracking projections by the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center, updated at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Hanna could very well make landfall in North Carolina early Saturday morning and head almost straight through the Greenville area during the day.

Rescheduling the game for later in the season is not an option. East Carolina is booked on the only full open week West Virginia has (two other open dates precede Thursday games) and even if a date could be found the Mountaineers don't want to disrupt their Big East schedule.

As for delaying the game this weekend, West Virginia has no trouble with playing Sunday or even Monday. The Mountaineers are off next weekend and don't play again until a game two weeks from today at Colorado. East Carolina, though, is scheduled to play at Tulane a week from Saturday, so moving the game to Monday seems as if it would be a last resort, only if a storm dumped so much water on the area that the field was left unplayable.

Reach Dave Hickman at 348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.

MORGANTOWN - West Virginia and East Carolina will play football this weekend, come Hanna or high water.

When they might play and where, though, remained up in the air Wednesday night.

Officials from both schools are monitoring weather reports and the path of tropical storm Hanna in the Atlantic Ocean and are all but resigned to the fact that the storm will have an impact on Saturday's game. Whether the impact will be a change of game time, a change of venue or simply wet and windy conditions at the scheduled time and place could be decided today.

No. 8 West Virginia is scheduled to play East Carolina at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Greenville, N.C.

"We'll talk [Thursday], probably late in the day,'' West Virginia athletic director Ed Pastilong said Wednesday night. "The bottom line is we can't create an alternate plan until we know what's in front of us on Saturday. And we won't know that until Saturday.''

Still, the schools will try to make an educated guess by the end of today so that plans can be made.

As of Wednesday night, West Virginia officials had not changed its travel plans for the weekend and it seems unlikely that they will. The team is to leave Morgantown at 11 a.m. Friday, bus to Clarksburg and fly to Greenville in time for a mid-afternoon walkthrough at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. The school has, however, investigated alternate airports to fly into Friday if its Delta Airlines charter needs a longer or wider runway due to winds.

As for the game itself, a number of possibilities exist, including playing the game at the appointed time and place. And although moving it to another location further inland in North Carolina can't be ruled out, it seems a more likely scenario would be keeping the game in Greenville and moving the kickoff to sometime Sunday.

Pastilong refused to speculate, instead pointing to the myriad considerations that have to be taken into account. They include, but certainly aren't limited to, the effect a change would have on fans and television (the game is to be telecast on ESPN).

"But let's cut to the chase. At the end of the day, safety is the No. 1 consideration,'' Pastilong said. "Television, the impact on fans, the problems it creates for hotels and charter companies and everything else; that all takes a back seat to the safety of everyone involved.''

According to tracking projections by the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center, updated at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Hanna could very well make landfall in North Carolina early Saturday morning and head almost straight through the Greenville area during the day.

Rescheduling the game for later in the season is not an option. East Carolina is booked on the only full open week West Virginia has (two other open dates precede Thursday games) and even if a date could be found the Mountaineers don't want to disrupt their Big East schedule.

As for delaying the game this weekend, West Virginia has no trouble with playing Sunday or even Monday. The Mountaineers are off next weekend and don't play again until a game two weeks from today at Colorado. East Carolina, though, is scheduled to play at Tulane a week from Saturday, so moving the game to Monday seems as if it would be a last resort, only if a storm dumped so much water on the area that the field was left unplayable.

Reach Dave Hickman at 348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.