With Hurricane Rita aiming its wrath toward the Texas coast, officials from Tennessee and LSU continue to monitor the forecast for Saturday's football game in Tiger Stadium.

Rice and Houston each postponed home games scheduled for Saturday. Texas A&M moved up its home game against Texas State 48 hours to tonight.

UT is scheduled to play at LSU at 7:45 p.m. (ET). Rita, boosted to a Category 5 storm on Wednesday, is expected to make landfall in the Galveston, Texas, area early Saturday.

The Vols are still scheduled to travel to Baton Rouge by charter flight late Saturday morning, athletic director Mike Hamilton said Wednesday night.

"The good news about our situation is since we're not traveling until Saturday morning, we have (a lot of) latitude,'' Hamilton said. "I'd hate to say we'd wait until the last minute, but we'll see what happens in the next 24 to 36 hours.''

The forecast for Baton Rouge on Saturday calls for thunderstorms. The chance of heavy rain during the evening is significant.

If Rita should shift to a more northerly course and threaten the Baton Rouge area, travel and game plans could obviously change.

"We will never put our student-athletes in any dire circumstances,'' Hamilton said. "That's a fact.

"But we're also not going to make any knee-jerk reactions.''

Hamilton said he has had no dialogue with anyone about postponing the game until Sunday or Monday.

Meanwhile, one game scheduled for Louisiana has been cancelled. Northwestern Oklahoma will not play at McNeese State in Lake Charles, La.

No make-up date has been announced for Houston's home game against Southern Mississippi. Southern Miss had already had one game postponed by Hurricane Katrina.

Rice's game with Navy will be played Oct. 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276.