Good lord...lots of people (particularly the...uneducated ones...like Meat) are arguing about stuff they don't understand.
Yes, there's a force majeure clause. But the word "void" doesn't mean you stop reading. There are things called "savings clauses" which can save the outcome from being the most drastic. Clearly, there is language on rescheduling when possible.
If (and let's change the natural disaster to, say, FIRE) a massive fire had burned down Jonesboro (please, please, please hear my prayers, sweet Jesus), there would have been no way to play the game. It would have been an impossibility, and if there were no exigencies that would have allowed for rescheduling, THEN the contract would have been void.
However, our situation is different, but that DOES NOT MEAN that you can't invoke the force majeure clause. Let's say that a fire was bearing down on Jonesboro (please, please) and all of a sudden it made a 90 degree turn at the last minute. Technically, it was not IMPOSSIBLE to play the game, but there may have been evacuations, etc. The concept of force majeure is an old one. The concept of how a city, county, and/or state prepares for natural disasters is more recent. If you honestly believe that a court would get super-technical on this issue, I believe you are misguided.
A hurricane was coming. Florida's governor declared an emergency situation. Interstates were turned one-way. Airports closed. Some areas were required to evacuate. We can act like players are just students to boss around, but they have families too, not all of them live on campus, some even have dependent children.
Furthermore, let's kick around the whiny A-State claim about the "Jonesboro community". Not all of the tickets were sold to hillbillies, right? Some of that "economic impact" that was going to rain down on Jonesboro was coming from...oh, that's right, people who were going to be no-shows due to...A MAJOR HURRICANE HITTING FLORIDA.
I understand that A-State is going to write (and more importantly, PUBLICIZE) a crybaby letter with a litany of horribles that puts all of the blame on selfish old Miami, while citing NON-legal precedents such as the case of FAU v. Wisconsin. Fine.
But keep in mind, there was a RANGE of reactions. In fact, it is possible to argue that UCF was denied a spot in the College Football Playoffs because they lacked a data point (a win over BCS foe Georgia Tech) that one extra game would have given them. And that is a MUCH MORE POWERFUL argument than "oh, Jonesboro lost out on some tourism dollars from people who weren't going to show up anyhow".
And let's not pretend that game cancellations and/or reschedulings were limited to ONE weekend. They were not. UCF had to cancel the Maine game in order to reschedule conference foe Memphis. UCF ended up adding Austin Peay in place of Maine, which means that UCF played AUSTIN PEAY instead of (essentially) BOTH Ga-Tech and Maine. It is a solid argument to make that the school MOST DAMAGED by the hurricane was UCF.
And UM and F$U had to reschedule our own game. F$U only rescheduled La-Mo to get bowl eligible.
And UF would have rescheduled Northern Colorado if it would have made a difference in bowl eligibility.
And USF cancelled the UMass game to reschedule conference games.
So this RIDICULOUS laser-focus on ONLY ONE WEEKEND of games is wrong. The hurricane impacted more than one weekend. OTHER games were cancelled by other Florida teams, not just poor, poor Arkansas State.
And, sure, maybe some other schools paid buyouts. I get it. But you don't get to say "hey, judge, Florida Gators", and then go home with your $650K check. That's not how things work.
Miami offered to reschedule. A-State doesn't like the dates offered. But the contract doesn't have a "satisfaction" clause that allows A-State to veto a reasonable offer to reschedule.
And as much as A-State is going to whine about what Miami did (versus what other schools did), Miami is just as easily going to show how A-State (and their fan websites) waged a multi-day "hurricane-shaming" effort to claim that Miami was pulling out of the game for non-hurricane reasons.
One more consideration for some of you. After the FIU-UM brawl, Miami "cancelled" upcoming games. Oh, wait, not quite. We are resuming those games now, after the bad blood has cooled. And I would argue that is EXACTLY what Blake James is doing with A-State.
Honestly, what are those hillbillies going to do when we show up? Hold a meaningless and cynical "hurricane relief fundraiser" to show what good people they are?
Every single A-State administrator, employee, alumnus, and fan who has blamed Miami for this fiasco are the scum of the earth. More than just 14 schools with games that weekend were impacted by a hurricane that weekend. I have pointed out "innocent" schools such as Maine and UMass who lost games on OTHER WEEKENDS too.
So when you figure out that almost two dozen schools either had games cancelled or rescheduled, from September to December, all because of one hurricane...and when you compare that to the fact that ONLY ARKANSAS STATE is still whining...
It's a pretty easy conclusion to draw. Sure, we will be in Arkansas, but it will be federal court. A lot of those guys are Clinton appointees, not triggered right-wingers who are going to freak out because some blacks and Hispanics from Miami caused some economic uncertainty to the innocent Christian virgins of Arkansas.
And I don't care about any fans who want to argue "just pay them the money". Most of you didn't even go to UM. It's my university, and when we are struggling to get the last $1.5 million for the IPF, I don't want to see any fund-raising pleas for another $650K for the poor, poor economically distressed hillbillies of Arkansas.
We have attorneys on staff. We have six years between now and 2024. Fight these hillbillies for as long as it takes. Little known fact, the "highest honor attainable at UM", Iron Arrow, fought a case all the way to the US Supreme Court, because they didn't want to be forced to tap women into the honor society. Yeah, Iron Arrow lost. I know people from UM who QUIT IRON ARROW because they were going to have to admit women, like a certain nasty old cracker who was a professor in the Religion department.
So, yeah, I would fully support UM offering to play again in 2024 or beyond...or a set of steak knives.
F A-State, F A-State's AD, and F A-State's whiny fanbase. They wanted to play UM, with zero-point-zero UM fans coming in from out-of-town to patronize Jonesboro establishments, simply because the A-State fans were feeling their oats after ALMOST beating a historically bad Nebraska team.
And THAT last sentence is the most accurate assessment every written about why A-State is still crying over this issue.
This is not about some lost revenue for Jonesboro restaurants and hotels. It never was.
