A nationwide FAA ground stop forced several college football programs to scramble Friday, with the Arizona State Sun Devils delaying their trip to Orlando, the Purdue Boilermakers switching to buses for Iowa, and the Colorado State Rams holding an airport walk-through less than 24 hours before kickoff.
The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily suspended departures across the country Friday afternoon after a communications failure disrupted multiple regional air traffic control centers. Aircraft already airborne were allowed to land, and the FAA later said departures would gradually resume as the affected centers returned to service.
Arizona State players left their aircraft and returned home to rest, ESPN reported. The team planned to fly to Florida Saturday morning, forcing it to make the cross-country journey on the same day it was scheduled to meet the UCF Knights at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. The Baylor Bears, Kansas State Wildcats and Utah Utes were also hit by travel delays, prompting the Big 12 to consider possible adjustments to Saturday’s schedule.
The travel disruption also threatened preparations for two high-profile SEC matchups. The Tennessee Volunteers remained in Knoxville awaiting clearance to depart for College Station, where they were due to play the Texas A&M Aggies at 3 p.m. Eastern. In Austin, the Texas Longhorns were delayed before their 7:30 p.m. meeting with the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, according to the New York Post.
Programs close enough to drive abandoned their flight plans and took buses instead. Purdue traveled toward Iowa City after its flight was delayed, while Auburn began the drive to Mississippi State. North Texas also took the road for its matchup with UTSA in San Antonio, ESPN reported.
Colorado State turned its airport delay into a final preparation session. ESPN’s Pete Thamel shared video of the Rams conducting a walk-through at Northern Colorado Regional Airport as they waited to depart for Pullman, Washington, ahead of Saturday night’s game against the Washington State Cougars. The Oregon State Beavers and Wyoming Cowboys were likewise waiting to leave for road contests against the Boise State Broncos and UTEP Miners.
Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said on The Paul Finebaum Show that several of his assistants had been recruiting Friday and needed to return to Athens for 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 before the disruption.
The Big Ten told ESPN that officials assigned to all eight of its Saturday games were already at their destinations. The ACC said each of its visiting teams had arrived as well, although ESPN reported that some conference officials remained stranded and that games could use seven-person officiating crews if necessary.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FAA technicians were working to identify the cause of the outage, which affected all 22 of the nation’s regional air traffic control centers.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no sign that the disruption resulted from an attack. It marked the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a failure involving a major FAA computer system briefly halted domestic departures. ABC News reported that more than 4,000 flights had been canceled by Friday evening.