Atlanta Weekend Travel category interest

Hurricane Helene brought a 500-mile path of destruction to the southeastern United States that took countless lives, swamped entire cities and, on a much, much smaller scale, canceled a number of college football games last weekend.

Among those was Valdosta State's scheduled home game with West Alabama. The decision to cancel that game was made during the Blazers' Wednesday evening practice. The team worked out Thursday morning, partially to get a workout in and partially to get eyes on all their players to prepare them for a storm that was now hours away from South Georgia.

"Somewhere between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., things really started hitting," Valdosta State head coach Tremaine Jackson told FootballScoop. "Got up Friday morning, cell phone service was down, couldn't really get in touch with anybody. Cell service started coming back Friday afternoon, some guys started asking to leave to go home because the lights were out." The majority of Valdosta State's 100-plus man roster dispersed to their hometowns for the weekend, with around 30 players remaining in town.

As Saturday turned to Sunday, the task turned into bringing players back to camp and figuring out whether this weekend's game at Shorter University could be played.

"I'm really proud of our players," Jackson said. "Our team is split into 12 families, and we have a Unity Council with a member of all 12 families. I told those guys to reach out to their families to see who wanted to play. We could get our travel squad back here, may not be able to get our redshirts and developmental guys."

With enough players available and willing to play, the next task became finding a place to house Valdosta State's roster and staff with the campus still uninhabitable. The Georgia State University system moved the VSU student body to Middle Georgia State University's campus in Macon, while the University System of Georgia secured 100 dorm rooms and a dining hall for the Blazers on Georgia State's campus in Atlanta. The entire team, coaches included.

Jackson will stay in a dorm room for the first time since 2006, when he lived in a dorm as Texas AandM-Kingsville's defensive line coach. Not only that, he'll share his room with assistant head coach Trent Earley and offensive line coach Brice Carlson.

"Our staff is willing to do whatever they need to do," Jackson told me en route to Atlanta. "They brought their families. We're going to be one happy organization right in Atlanta."

The good and bad of the situation is that Valdosta State has been through this before, recently. The 2023 campaign opened with a hurricane in town on Wednesday and a home game that Saturday. "This time we actually get to do it with power on," Jackson said. "Somebody had the clock for the game on an iPhone on the sideline. We got dressed in the dark." The Blazers won that game, 63-10.

This year's squad will get dressed with the lights on for Saturday's game at Shorter, an hour and half northeast of Atlanta in Rome, Ga. And they'll take the field with two greater purposes in mind.

First, the Blazers are after an outright Gulf South Conference championship after sharing last year's crown with Delta State. Valdosta is 4-0 to start the season, winning its two most recent games by a combined 107-0.

"These guys, in a group chat, decided they wanted to play for one another. We set a goal that we wanted to be champions. They came back on their own, some of them against their parents' wishes, because they set a goal and play for each other," Jackson said.

Second, Valdosta State will play Saturday for the university and the city they represent.

"Our city is going through it. This is the second hurricane in 13 months," Jackson said. "We have great support from our city. We've had a great start to our season but we are thinking about our city. We're going to play in honor of our city."