By GEOFFREY STOUTE

Morgan City High School’s football game against Comeaux Saturday in Lafayette was cancelled Friday because of concerns MCHS coach Brandon Nowlin had about the lack of preparation time.

Nowlin said Friday evening that after talking with MCHS Principal Mickey Fabre Thursday and again Friday morning, they decided to inform Comeaux that they didn’t want to play the game and would prepare for next week.

While Nowlin said playing Sunday was an option, it could not be pursued because Comeaux elected to play Notre Dame, whose game against Southwood had been cancelled.

“I looked at the positives,” Nowlin said. “I looked at the negatives. … We definitely wanted to play the game. If we would have had another day or two of practice, we definitely would have played the game.”

While teams had until today at midnight to complete their week 1 matchups, Nowlin said that he didn’t want to play today because it would cut short his team’s preparation for Friday’s home opener against Berwick.

Even the Notre Dame-Comeaux game couldn’t be completed because of rain and lightning in Lafayette.

The game was called after it was stopped for a while for the lightning delay with Notre Dame leading 7-0 with 1:57 remaining in the first quarter.

Because he had never experienced a circumstance like this with an extended break from practice before playing a game, Nowlin consulted many before making his final decision. Nowlin even called his high school coach at Catholic High in Baton Rouge, Dale Weiner, who had cancelled his week 1 matchup against Zachary High, which is coached by his son.

“I kind of struggled with it for a while, and went back and forth with what we thought as a staff and what I thought as a head coach what was best for our kids,” Nowlin said.

One of his concerns, he said was that some of his players with injuries were not able to get treatment this week and to test themselves against others in practice to see how they would respond.

Morgan City also had 10 players on an approximately 53-man squad that were not at school Friday, including the squad’s punter and kicker.

“(It’s) kinda hard to play a ball game without a kicker and punter,” Nowlin said.

Saturday’s game originally was set for Friday at 7 p.m. but was moved back because of Hurricane Isaac.

It was one of multiple games that were either postponed or cancelled.

The Crowley Post-Signal contributed to this report