Slive got it right ... Monday night

He's watched the conference start instant replay, he nailed down all his future bowl contracts and he got a contract extension.

But last week may have been one of his toughest. Because Hurricane Rita was expected to be felt in the Baton Rouge area Saturday morning, Slive had to make the decision last Thursday to postpone Saturday night's Tennessee-at-LSU game until Monday night.

Apparently, there's nothing in the SEC bylaws about dealing with hurricanes.

"I looked in the index for 'H' for hurricanes," Slive said with a smile. "I couldn't find anything."

Slive understood the concerns from both LSU and Tennessee.

LSU athletic director Skip Bertman, after seeing his first two games postponed to October and moved to Arizona State, respectively, because of Hurricane Katrina, desperately wanted to play the Vols' game on Saturday night as scheduled.

Bertman felt that a Saturday night in Tiger Stadium was medicine for shellshocked South Louisiana.

Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton, who denied he ever said he would have forfeited the game if he had been told to play on Saturday, was concerned about the safety of the Vols' players. Even before the game was re-scheduled, Tennessee had conceded to fly to Baton Rouge on the day of the game because all area hotel rooms were being occupied by hurricane evacuees, and all types of construction, rescue, medical and security personnel.

"We had to make a decision on Thursday," Slive said in the LSU press box prior to Tennessee's 30-27 overtime victory over the Tigers. "We had to think about what would have been in here on Saturday.

"From the information I had, Rita was going to have more of an impact on this area than Katrina. The question became could Tennessee fly in here safely on Saturday ... and I didn't think they could."

Slive said for the last couple of weeks, the conference explored options of moving the game to another locale (something to which LSU vehemently objected) and moving the game to December if the SEC championship game could be moved from Dec. 3 to Dec. 10.

"This wasn't a unilateral situation like 9/11 when every team in our league was affected," Slive said. "We couldn't hold up 10 other teams in our league for two teams. There was also a hotel issue in Atlanta.

"You never say never, but there really wasn't a clear-cut solution to this problem."

There was also the logistical nightmare of having enough local, parish and state police on hand for traffic flow and stadium security for a Saturday night kickoff just hours after the final wind gusts.

So Slive moved the game to Monday.

"Skip (Bertman) called me yesterday (Sunday) to let me know that I'd made the right move," Slive said.

Slive said he already knew what strain LSU had been under since Katrina hit at the end of August. Slive and Georgia President Michael Adams, who also serves as president of the SEC, visited the LSU campus two weeks ago.

"What this university did to handle the crisis was remarkable," Slive said.