The weather has been so bad, Lamar had to cancel its football banquet featuring Dennis Franchione and the first weekly coach’s conference of the season.

That’s been no more of an issue than trying to string together a full practice ever since preseason camp began Aug. 7.

“It’s typical to get to August, and every afternoon, you have a storm cell pop up,” first-year coach Mike Schultz said. “Our kids have learned to handle what I call chaos. Lightning pops up, we get them off the field. They go eat and we get them on the field and practice again.”

With the off-and-on lightning before Harvey touched down in Texas as a hurricane, this has been football life at Lamar the past few weeks. It’s just been a little crazier since Friday.

“I cannot give enough credit to the kids and staff,” Schultz said during Tuesday’s first Southland Conference coaches’ teleconference of 2017. “Their attitudes have been, ‘We can handle this. We can make this work.’”

For now, Saturday’s opener at North Texas is expected to go on, but the challenge for the Cardinals has been keeping in close contact with one another and finding breaks between the bands of rain to practice.

Schultz said about 75 percent of his players are still on campus, which was to start classes Monday but instead has been closed.

Schultz has relied on his position coaches to maintain contact with his players. He also didn’t want to practice until he knew trainers would be available, and he’s even had to pick up those who live off campus to get them to drills.

“Eric Buchanan, our running backs coach, has been staying in and out of my house because he can’t get back to Baytown,” Schultz said. “We go back and text [graduate transfer] James White, ‘Are you dry? What’s your parking lot look like?’

“We have a strict team rule: You don’t drive through water. Chase Bridgeman [redshirt freshman offensive lineman] texted us and said he had to turn around and go back home. He couldn’t make it to practice. We said, ‘It’s not worth it.’ We had a kid in Lumberton … we haven’t seen him because we haven’t been able to reach him.”

Lamar practiced Saturday at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu because it has an indoor facility but could not go back Sunday. A recreation center in Beaumont was the site of Monday’s drills, and Schultz added the Cardinals managed to add in a weightlifting session.

“When you have flooding like we have, you have to make sure the kids can get to the complex and get them out of the complex so they can get back home,” Schultz said.

But the fate of Saturday’s game is still in the air, as Harvey is forecast to matriculate through northeast Texas and northwest Louisiana into Arkansas.

“I’m living on my radar on my phone,” Schultz said. “I don’t know enough about what’s going to happen 48 hours. … I know our kids would rather go play. They’re talking about this eye going over Beaumont or Orange sometime tonight at 1 a.m.”

CAJUNS TO THE RESCUE?
Louisiana-Lafayette offered Lamar the opportunity to practice on its field, but weather conditions have not afforded the Cardinals the chance to travel to Lafayette. McNeese State, however, has visited the former Southland Conference rival, now a member of the Sun Belt Conference, and McNeese coach Lance Guidry was unavailable to take part in the teleconference due to practice.

Sam Houston State was to begin its season on Sunday against Richmond, but that game has been moved to Baylor’s McLane Stadium for 6 p.m. Friday. Admission to that game is free.

SHSU coach K.C. Keeler said the Bearkats have not been able to practice much since Friday.

“Playing a football game is secondary,” Keeler said Tuesday. “We’re making sure everyone is safe.”
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I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews