The Arizona State Sun Devils delayed their flight to Orlando until Saturday morning, while the Purdue Boilermakers boarded buses bound for Iowa. At Northern Colorado Regional Airport, the Colorado State Rams held a walk-through as a nationwide ground stop disrupted college football travel one day before kickoff.
The Federal Aviation Administration halted departures across the country Friday afternoon after a communications issue affected regional air traffic control centers. Flights already airborne were allowed to land, and the FAA later said some departures would resume as control centers recovered.
Arizona State players left their plane and returned home to rest, ESPN reported. The Sun Devils planned to fly to Florida Saturday morning, the same day they were scheduled to play the UCF Knights at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. That left the team facing a cross-country trip on game day. The Baylor Bears, Kansas State Wildcats and Utah Utes also encountered travel delays Friday, and the Big 12 said it was considering changes to Saturday’s schedule.
The nationwide stoppage also threatened travel plans for two of Saturday’s most prominent SEC matchups. The Tennessee Volunteers were waiting in Knoxville to depart for College Station, where they were set to face the Texas A&M Aggies at 3 p.m. Eastern. The Texas Longhorns were delayed in Austin before their 7:30 p.m. game against the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, the New York Post reported.
Several teams close enough to drive abandoned their flight plans and took buses instead. Purdue traveled toward Iowa City after its flight was delayed, Auburn drove to Mississippi State, and North Texas took the road to San Antonio for its game against UTSA, ESPN reported.
Colorado State turned the delay into an opportunity for one final rehearsal. ESPN’s Pete Thamel shared video of the Rams conducting a walk-through at Northern Colorado Regional Airport while they waited to fly to Pullman for Saturday night’s matchup with the Washington State Cougars. The Oregon State Beavers and Wyoming Cowboys were also waiting to depart for road games against the Boise State Broncos and UTEP Miners, respectively.
Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart told The Paul Finebaum Show that some of his assistants were traveling for recruiting Friday and needed to return to Athens ahead of Saturday’s home game against the Missouri Tigers. Smart said:
The text thread is popping. We’re wondering how the officials are going to get to where they got to get to go and the teams, some of them are grounded and not to their locations yet. Maybe if we actually had regional conferences, we could just drive to the games.
Missouri had already reached Athens.
The Big Ten told ESPN that officials for all eight of its Saturday games were already at their assigned locations. The ACC said all of its visiting teams had arrived before the ground stop, although ESPN reported that some ACC officials remained grounded. If necessary, the conference could use seven-person officiating crews.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FAA technicians were investigating the outage, which affected all 22 of the country’s regional air traffic control centers.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had found no indication of an attack. It was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a failure in a key FAA computer system temporarily halted domestic departures. ABC News reported that more than 4,000 flights had been canceled by Friday evening.
