ESPN College Football

As Hurricane Gustav struck the New Orleans area with forces less than those of Hurricane Katrina on Monday, Louisiana schools had planned to take the blow in various ways.

Tulane evacuated New Orleans for Birmingham on Saturday and practiced Monday morning at Samford University. Tulane plays its season opener at Alabama on Saturday and will practice in Birmingham all week.

"Every employee and student has a mandatory evacuation plan and we were very prepared for this," Tulane spokesman Roger Dunaway said Monday. "We have 24 players that have gone through Ivan or Katrina and those guys know what to expect. We are very tense right now. We are worried about the levees back home. It's wait and see. But it is a Category 2 instead of Category 4. We're anxious and tense but when it comes to practice football, we're loose and focused."

LSU in Baton Rouge and Louisiana-Lafayette elected to brace the storm at home.

"We're riding it out," LSU spokesman Michael Bonnette said Monday. "We've told them to get home and be safe. You fear the worst and hope for the best. It seems this one is taking a different angle than Katrina and it won't have the same flooding effect. We hope to be in our indoor facilities on Tuesday, practicing for our home game with Troy, if they are not damaged. We are preparing as if we're going to play."

Louisiana-Lafayette does not play this week and players were free to stay or evacuate. McNeese State in Lake Charles, La., plays a home game against Delta State on Saturday and players were free to stay or evacuate.

"We're riding it out and preliminary signs are it could get pretty ugly in Lafayette," school spokesman Daryl Cetnar said Monday. "I think a small percentage of players left the area. We know where every person is so we're just hunkered down and we'll see what happens."

Tulane players are just thankful to be in a better situation than the one three years ago when the Green Wave played 11 games in 11 different cities, none of them New Orleans.

"Guys don't have the problems we had last time," Tulane offensive tackle Troy Kropog said. "Nobody is overly worried. Last time we had to spend a few days in a gym sleeping on the floor with no power with 90-something-degree Mississippi heat."

Said McNeese State spokesman Louis Bonnette on Monday: "Ninety percent of the people in Lake Charles have evacuated and many of our players have headed home to Southwest Louisiana or Southeast Texas. We're hoping to play here. Last time, with Hurricane Rita, the tornadoes tore up our houses but they're saying there will be flooding but not those hurricanes they couldn't even count last time."

Southeastern Louisiana relocated from Hammond, La., to Oxford, Miss., on Sunday and was using Ole Miss' practice fields and workout rooms Monday in preparation for their game at Mississippi State. Nicholls State had postponed its game at New Mexico State this week and with the storm expected to hit Thibodaux hard, most players evacuated.

Alabama coach Nick Saban, formerly LSU's head man, was sympathetic to Tulane's plight. In 2005, his Miami Dolphins had their game with Kansas City pushed up 42 hours on short notice ahead of Hurricane Wilma. They lost 30-20.

"It's unfortunate that they have to move away from their home facilities but I'm sure their coaching staff and players will do it with a lot of maturity and prepare well for the game," Saban said.

He said he and his wife, Terry, invited friends from Louisiana to stay at their home in Tuscaloosa or their lake house in Georgia.

For Tulane, the only holdover on the coaching staff from Katrina is running backs coach Greg Davis. With meeting rooms in the hotel and a place for team meals, the big differences are that the players don't have class -- Tulane has canceled classes for the week -- and a hotel full of barking dogs.

"That would be the only thing out of the ordinary from any vacation anybody would ever go on in a hotel," Davis said of the dogs. "There's more here than I've ever seen in any hotel I've ever been in."

Joe Schad covers college football for ESPN. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.