College football schedule thrown into chaos as FAA’s rare nationwide ground stop leaves teams stranded across America
This weekend’s college football slate has been thrown into chaos after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prevented takeoffs at all airports across the country.
On Friday afternoon, the agency ordered a ground stop for every flight not in the air across the entirety of American airspace due to communication errors.
This has led to delays and cancellations for thousands of domestic and international flights in the US.
According to reports from The Athletic and ESPN’s Pete Thamel, 15 FBS football programs have been affected by this issue and have yet to take off for their away games.
This includes four teams in the top-25: No. 2 Utah, No. 6 Texas, No. 8 Tennessee, and No. 19 Mississippi.
Other Power Four schools affected include Arizona State, Baylor, Auburn, Kansas State, Purdue, Washington and Minnesota. Non-Power Four schools impacted include Tulane, Oregon State, Wyoming and North Texas.
An FAA mandated groundstop at all US airports has thrown chaos into the college football schedule
According to Thamel, Purdue is working around the issue by putting their team on busses for a five hour drive to play Iowa – where they are expected to arrive by 11:00pm. He later reported that North Texas would drive to San Antonio for their game against UTSA.
Teams with road games within a similar driving time range include Auburn @ Mississippi State, Tulane @ Rice and Oregon State @ Boise State.
Meanwhile, potential drives for Texas (at LSU) and Kansas State (at TCU) would take two hours longer.
The other games – Utah @ Arizona, Tennessee @ Texas A&M, Mississippi @ Oklahoma, Arizona State @ Central Florida, Baylor @ BYU, Washington @ Michigan State, Minnesota @ Penn State and Wyoming @ UTEP – are so significantly far apart that driving isn’t within the realm of possibility.
Additionally, there may be issues with game officials arriving to their proper sites. A Big Ten spokesperson told Thamel that all their officials are already at their final destinations.
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