College football flight chaos ensues after rare nationwide FAA ground stop

The FAA’s nationwide ground stop is throwing a wrench into Saturday’s college football action.

With no flights permitted to take off for the time being due to a telecommunications outage, several teams across the country were left stranded, having yet to depart for their respective road games.

Among them are two teams with massive SEC matchups on Saturday — No. 9 Tennessee and No. 8 Texas.

The Volunteers’ plane is grounded in Knoxville, according to On3’s Ryan Schumpert, ahead of their game against Texas A&M in College Station at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday. Tennessee will make a decision about its travel plans later Friday night.

The Longhorns are in a similar situation in Austin, with their showdown against No. 24 LSU in Baton Rouge set for Saturday night, per Inside Texas’ Tyler Horka.

Among the teams facing particularly lengthy trips are Arizona State, which is set to play UCF in Orlando, and Washington, which will visit Michigan State in East Lansing.

Ole Miss, Baylor, Utah, Kansas State, Minnesota, Oregon State and Wyoming also had yet to fly to their destinations, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Purdue, meanwhile, opted to bus to Iowa City for its matchup against Iowa, according to Thamel. On3 reported that Auburn and North Texas have opted to do the same.

The SEC said in a statement that it’s aware of the flight issues and what impact it could have on travel for affected teams.

“We are in close communication with our member institutions to assess potential disruptions and coordinate appropriate responses,” the conference said in a statement. “The safety and well-being of student-athletes, coaches, and team personnel remain our highest priority.

“We will continue to monitor developments and work with our institutions to determine whether any adjustments to scheduled competitions become necessary.”

Other teams got lucky.

No. 15 USC was already in the air and en route to Indiana when the ground stop went into effect, while Michigan had arrived in Eugene to take on Oregon on Thursday.

Missouri, which is set to take on top-ranked Georgia in Athens, and Northwestern, which will face Ohio State in Columbus, had also arrived at their destinations. All ACC teams arrived before the ground stop, according to Thamel.

The FAA is investigating the issue with no timetable for when flights can resume.

It’s just the second nationwide ground stop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with the other coming in January 2023 following a computer system failure.

It remains to be seen whether any of Saturday’s games will need to be postponed or have kickoff times pushed back.