College football teams urged to reach out to FAA —…
False begins and delayed touchdowns.
Dozens of faculty football teams have called audibles and are scrambling to reach their locations for this weekend’s video games after the Federal Aviation Administration issued — and has since lifted — an extraordinarily uncommon nationwide ground stop.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday evening that journey officers would help stranded teams get to their video games on Saturday after they have been caught at home and on the tarmac.
Stranded vacationers wait at JFK International Airport in New York after a nationwide ground stop delayed and canceled hundreds of flights on Nov. 13, 2026. Olga Fedorova/EPA/Shutterstock
“As I mentioned, we’re going to allow for general aviation,” Duffy said during a press convention at the White House Friday evening.
“Those larger movements to take place as a priority. Smaller movements will take a lower priority. And so if you talk about football teams moving, many of those are on charters and there’s a lot of individuals on those charter planes.”
“So I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA, to schedule their flight times and make sure they can move to make sure we have games going off tomorrow.”
The FAA’s ground stop was announced Friday afternoon after air visitors control services skilled communication and radar instability points, leaving hundreds of flights grounded.
Duffy blamed the nationwide grounding on the “DECADES-OLD” air visitors control system operating on analog gear.
The ground stop was lifted just after 8:30 p.m., but it still left hundreds of flights delayed and canceled, including some top FBS teams that have been due to fly out Friday, a typical journey day in faculty sports activities.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks about the nationwide FAA ground stop during a news convention at the White House on Nov. 13, 2026. AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Saturday’s College Football slate — its eleventh of the season — will function a number of start-time modifications due to the FAA’s unprecedented transfer.
Top faculty teams affected by the flight suspension included a handful of Top-25 ranked teams such as Tennessee, Texas and Ole Miss.
Other applications impacted embrace Tulane, Baylor, San Jose, Washington, Minnesota, FAU, Utah, Arizona State, Auburn, Purdue and North Texas.
Auburn, Purdue, Tulane and North Texas have been initially scheduled to journey by air Friday to their highway video games – instead opting to take buses to Mississippi State, Iowa, Houston and San Antonio, respectively.
Arizona State’s matchup against UCF, set for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff, was pushed back two hours as the Sun Devils announced they might be flying out of Tempe Saturday morning.
Across the Grand Canyon state, Arizona’s home sport against No. 2 Utah was moved to 8:30 p.m. after the Utes couldn’t fly out because the pilots’ time had expired during the ground stop, Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported.
Planes sit on the tarmac at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in Chicago during a nationwide ground stop on Nov. 13, 2026. AFP via Getty Images
The Baylor-BYU sport in Provo, Utah was moved from its authentic 1:30 p.m. start time to 5 p.m.
Ole Miss’s sport against Oklahoma was up in the air early Saturday morning as the Rebels didn’t journey Friday with kickoff still scheduled for 4:15 p.m.
The two teams have been in dialogue with the SEC concerning the sport with convention officers pushing for a Sunday kickoff after Ole Miss was unable to journey to Norman, Okla.
The Sooners strongly objected the date change and have been warned about forfeiting the match if they declined to play Sunday.
“I understand that difficult decisions sometimes must be made under extraordinary circumstances. But those decisions must also consider the impact on everyone involved,” Oklahoma Athletic Director Roger Denny said in a assertion, arguing the date change would impression gameday workers and followers who had scheduled for a Saturday sport.
Several teams that had been caught at airports had made it back on their flights and arrived at their locations, without needing any kickoff time changes, including Tennessee and Texas.
The No. 8 Longhorns shared the crew’s total journey day saga to LSU, first posting a video of gamers boarding a aircraft at 3:48 p.m. with the caption “Bayou bound.”
Nearly an hour later, the crew’s account confirmed the gear trailer at a loading dock in Baton Rouge, La., before finally sharing an update of gamers reboarding a aircraft at 11:28 p.m., saying, *Now* we’re Bayou Bound.”
The kickoff instances for Texas’ primetime sport in Death Valley and the Volunteers’ matchup at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field weren’t affected by the hours-long delay.
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