The travel plans for 10 Power 4 conference football teams have been disrupted by the Federal Aviation Administration’s nationwide ground stop of all flights on Friday because of communications problems at regional air traffic control centers.
Four Big 12 teams (Baylor, Kansas State, Utah Utes and Arizona State) and three teams from both the Big Ten (Minnesota, Purdue and Washington) and SEC (Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas) were still waiting to leave on Friday for the sites of this weekend’s games.
The ACC told ESPN that all of its visiting teams had reached destinations of Saturday’s games before the FAA issued the ground stop of all flights.
ESPN has also confirmed that Oregon State, which is scheduled to play at No. 24 Boise State on Saturday (6 p.m. ET), still hasn’t left for Idaho.
At least two other teams from Group of 6 conferences, North Texas and Wyoming, were on flights that were also grounded.
The travel delays might affect several of Saturday’s top games, including No. 8 Tennessee at Texas A&M (3 p.m. ET), No. 6 Texas at No. 21 LSU (7:30 p.m. ET), and No. 2 Utah at No. 23 Arizona (7:30 p.m. ET).
The Boilermakers were scheduled to fly to Iowa City to play the No. 15 Hawkeyes, but they instead opted to take buses after their flight was delayed, sources told ESPN.
Auburn is taking buses to Mississippi State after its flight to Starkville, Mississippi, was delayed. North Texas is doing the same for its game against UTSA in San Antonio.
Another issue to track here will be officials. They tend to fly in the day before. There could be a scramble for officials or crews compromised by travel.
The FAA issued the ground stop because of “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” according to a notice.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communications issue was affecting the regional air traffic control centers that direct planes between airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating. This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Homeland Security secretary said there was no indication yet of nefarious acts behind the FAA communications issue.
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, Andrea Adelson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
