Plenty of college football games have been canceled or rescheduled - there's nothing too crazy about that. What you don't see often, though, is a game getting jeopardized by an active volcano...but that's exactly what's threatening the Penn State - UCF matchup on August 30.
The game is scheduled to take place at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland, but a volcano all the way up in Iceland is threatening to rain on the parade. You may recall a volcano named Eyjafjallajökull royally screwing up air travel in Europe for over a week back in 2010 - while no one was at risk of getting Pompeii'd, the ash it sent into the air made trans-Atlantic air travel pretty much impossible.
This volcano, Bárðarbunga, isn't as likely to wreak havoc...but the possibility of an eruption is very much there. Ireland falls within range of the potential ash cloud, which would unfortunately force the game to be rescheduled or (ugh) cancelled. Penn State and UCF currently have no intention of changing their plans, but they're monitoring the situation closely - not a bad idea when both teams are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday the 27th.
Scientists aren't sure how likely it is that Bárðarbunga blows its top in the next week, but Iceland has changed their aviation color code to orange, representing a “heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption.” We'll keep you posted on all the latest volcano-related happenings in the college football world. For those of you interested in reading more on Bárðarbunga, Slate has an excellent breakdown on how a possible eruption could play out.
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