Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton said he has as much compassion as anybody for those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

But the possibility of the Vols having to fly into Baton Rouge, La., on game day Sept. 24 to play the No. 3-ranked LSU Tigers has Hamilton worked up.

"We don't want to be insensitive, but I'm hired to protect the interests of our university,'' Hamilton said. "We'll be there, and we'll compete, but Tennessee is at a disadvantage in relation to our fans attending the game and the adjustments we have to make in terms of our travel schedule.''

The issue is the lack of hotel rooms in the Gulf Coast region. Because of an executive order from the governor of Louisiana, hurricane evacuees cannot be displaced from their rooms.

Greater Baton Rouge's 8,500 hotel/motel rooms were at 100 percent occupancy on Monday, Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitors Commission officials said.

Hamilton requested the LSU game be moved from its 7:45 p.m. (ESPN) start time to earlier in the afternoon so the 7,000 UT fans who bought out the Vols' ticket allotment could travel to the game and still have time to find alternate lodging.

LSU rejected the plan, however, and the SEC league office has supported that decision.

"We're getting great feedback from people within the city (Baton Rouge), and they want everything to move back to being normal and playing a game on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium would be a very normal thing,'' said Dan Radakovich, LSU's senior associate athletic director.

"Because of the proximity Tennessee has to our location ... Tennessee could possibly, if the worse circumstance occurred, fly in on game day and play the ball game,'' he said. "But I think that's a remote possibility.''

Vols' coach Phillip Fulmer appeared irritated when asked about the chance UT would need to fly in and play a game the same day.

"We're playing Florida Saturday,'' Fulmer snapped. "I'm not going to worry about that.''

That's Hamilton's job.

"The hotel folks know we want to come on Friday, but at this point we don't have anything,'' Hamilton said. "Our guys are going to go down there in the next couple of days and look at different possibilities. Right now, Lafayette (La.) is the next closest place we can even look.''

Lafayette is 54 miles from Baton Rouge.

In addition to the hurricane evacuees, medical, social and construction support personnel are jockeying for hotel rooms in the Baton Rouge area. They, too, have priority over the Tennessee football program and its fans.

Hamilton said UT typically needs about 100 rooms on each road trip, but under the circumstances, he'd settle for 60 rooms and bring a skeleton support staff.

The remainder of the UT football program would fly down on game day.

"I've tried to keep our staff focused on the task at hand, and we're hopeful we can work something out from a hotel perspective,'' Hamilton said. "It has been decided there's not going to be a neutral site game, or a game in Knoxville. This game will be played in Baton Rouge.

"We're good enough as coaches and players to overcome this thing, but we wouldn't normally have to overcome these type of circumstances.''

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