No state troopers for USC-Georgia, but local police ready to help

South Carolina’s football game this weekend against Georgia won’t get any law enforcement assistance from the state, Gov. Nikki Haley said.

“What we have informed USC is we will not be able to give any state support for that game,” Haley said Wednesday at a news conference. “I can’t take troopers off the road to go put them at a football game. If they do that, they would be working with the Richland County sheriff’s office to get that done.”

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said his agency along with the Columbia Police Department and the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department have contingency plans to include using school resource officers as well as officers who are in training at the state police academy to handle game traffic and stadium security.

“There won’t be any lack of security at the game whenever it’s held,” Lott said.

The Gamecocks (2-3 overall, 1-3 SEC) are scheduled to play the Bulldogs (2-2, 1-2) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Williams-Brice Stadium. The game will be televised by the SEC Network.

The chance that the game will be moved out of Columbia is “very, very minimal,” Gamecocks executive associate athletic director Charles Bloom told the school’s flagship radio station on Wednesday afternoon. The chances of moving the game from Saturday night to Sunday or even Monday are another matter, Bloom indicated.

“From our standpoint, we are just focused on the storm,” Haley said. “We are not focused on the game. They did call and ask and we just said not to expect any state support.”

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 6:35 PM with the headline "No state troopers for USC-Georgia, but local police ready to help."