The Houston Cougars could have played at Texas-San Antonio on Saturday.

Instead they decided there were more important things than football.

Houston — The Houston Cougars could have played their football game at Texas-San Antonio on Saturday.

Instead they chose to postpone it, deciding there were things much more important than football this week with Houston besieged by catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Harvey.

"We felt like it wasn't the right thing to do in terms of where our city is," Houston coach Major Applewhite said. "Sports are important and sports are fun and its entertainment, but with casualties in our city, and the state of mind of our players and our players' families, it's not the right thing to do, to play a game."

Applewhite spoke in Austin where the Cougars have been practicing since evacuating there ahead of the storm on Friday. He said football is secondary right now and they'll figure out how to make the game up when conditions improve.

"Houston is across our chest for a reason," he said. "It's our city, a lot of people on our team from our city and we need to help not only our immediate family ... but go back and give to a city who has given a lot to us and concentrate our efforts there. We'll get to our season."

Officials said they will explore options for rescheduling the game against UTSA. Houston has an off date on Nov. 11.

The Cougars will not compete in any sports this weekend with events in cross country, volleyball and soccer also being canceled.

Many of the Cougar football players are from the area and have been nervously getting updates on friends and loved ones from television broadcasts and social media.

"This is bigger than football," senior running back Dillon Birden, who is from the Houston suburb of Cypress. "We're ready to get back to our city and help our city."

The storm has also forced the Houston Dash to play their scheduled home game against the Seattle Reign FC on Sunday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas. Tickets to that game are $20 with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross.

The changes are the latest to hit Houston sports teams. The Astros were forced to play their series against the Texas Rangers at the home of the Tampa Bay Rays while the Texans are playing their "home" preseason game on the road against the Dallas Cowboys instead.

The Rice football team hasn't been home in days, holed up in Fort Worth on the TCU campus after a game in Sydney, Australia, over the weekend.

"Basically it's a day-to-day plan," Rice coach David Bailiff said Tuesday. "We meet every morning, and we meet every evening just to make sure we're ensuring, first their human needs. This right now is so not about football. It's about taking care of people and that's what I just told the team, too."

Bailiff isn't sure when he and his team will be able to get back home.

"We all want to be back in Houston," he said. "We just can't get there."