The season opening game for the UConn football team against Fordham at Rentschler Field, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled for Saturday at noon.

All tickets and parking passes for the original date will be honored Saturday.

The game was postponed because Rentschler Field is being used by the Connecticut National Guard as a commodities distribution center for cities and towns in need in the wake of Hurricane Irene. The announcement of the postponement did not come until Tuesday afternoon. The school was forced to wait until today for confirmation on Rentschler being available on Saturday.

The relief effort will run concurrently with the football game, and patrons are being encouraged to arrive early.

Since the two schools share no other open dates, UConn had reached out to find alternative sites for the game. Among those contacted was Yale University to inquire whether the Yale Bowl might be available as an alternative on Saturday.

The Bowl, which had power restored in the wake of the storm, would have been fully prepared for a football game anyway, as Yale will hold its annual preseason scrimmage this weekend, Yale director of sports publicity Steve Conn said.

The last time a UConn football game was postponed was 10 years ago in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when a scheduled game against Temple was replayed in November.