Central’s head coach Bryson Rosser huddles with his Bobcats during their playoff game against Catholic on Friday, Nov. 23, 2018 at Catholic.
COOKEVILLE — They waited for hours. But the lightning and rains that hit the campus Saturday night at Tennessee Tech proved too unrelenting. And more storms were on the way.
Officials finally postponed the Class 5A BlueCross Bowl championship game between Central (12-2) and Henry County (13-1) at 8:54 p.m. Central time Saturday night and moved the game to a 2 p.m. Central start on Sunday.
Tickets purchased Saturday will be honored with valid stub or digital ticket. There will be no charge for parking.
Central is searching for its first state title in program history, having finished runner-up in 1999 and 2016. Henry County is after its third, having won in 2011 and 2013 against Powell and West, respectively.
The game Sunday will not be televised, but TSSAA will stream the game live for free. The link is below in this tweet …
The 5A state championship will NOT be on TV Sunday at 2 pm CST/3 pm EST… but, WILL stream at: https://t.co/IroM6kBl7l @rivalrythursday @tssaafootball @hcpatriots @CoachTcom @tssaa @wvlt @5StarPreps @NashvillePreps @prepxtra @PilotPrepSports
— Mark Packer (@wvltpacker) December 2, 2018
“Mother Nature, we can’t control,” said Central coach Bryson Rosser. “It’s unfortunate it happened. The kids were all revved up. But I’d much rather deal with the safety of the kids and the fans rather than try to force a football game. Thankfully, we have the opportunity to come in tomorrow. Weather should be a lot nicer than it was today, and we’ll kick it off.”
Central players returned to Knoxville on Saturday night. Rosser said the team will be fed breakfast Sunday morning before going through a brief walk-through. A sendoff tonight for Central’s return trip to Cookeville has not been announced.
“If you saw, our first two groups came out for warm-ups. Our guys were in the mindset of getting ready to go,” said Rosser. “The concern for me was: just keeping them in there (the locker room) and keeping them loose (once the delay hit). After a while, that goes out the window, and you have to make sure they’re in a positive mindset. They’re still at the stadium. We could kick off at any moment.”