NCAA team travel could be prioritized for Saturday football after FAA ground stop, transportation chief says

A view from LaGuardia Airport in New York, United States, on November 13, 2026, as flights are disrupted after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop for all domestic departures across the United States due to a tel Expand The Brief Air traffic control communication issues triggered a four-hour ground stop on Friday, reducing active flights from 3,500 to fewer than 400 and causing widespread travel delays.

The Details

Because teams typically fly on Fridays, top programs — including Utah, Texas, and Tennessee — were left stranded, prompting conferences to consider rescheduling Saturday's games.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged college teams to contact the FAA directly to schedule charter flights, while several NBA teams also faced delays, though Sunday’s NFL schedule is expected to remain unaffected.

The U.S. transportation secretary said NCAA college football teams should reach out to the FAA to make sure they can reach their scheduled games following Friday’s FAA ground stop that threatened to throw the weekend’s sports schedules into disarray.

Big picture view

The FAA ordered a full ground stop Friday afternoon after communications systems among air traffic control experienced "instability," U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.

The ground stop lasted for over four hours, and Duffy warned that getting everything back on schedule would not be a quick process.

At the time of the ground stoppage, there were 3,500 airplanes in the sky.

"And last time I looked, we had less than, 400 in the airspace," Duffy said, adding "it’s going to be slow" getting air traffic back to normal.

The delays threatened sports schedules for college football and other sports, since many schools travel the day before game day and found themselves stranded at airports.

"If you’re talking about football teams moving," Duffy continued, "many of those are 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 those flight times, so they can move and make sure we have games going off tomorrow."

Dig deeper

The air stop left many schools, including second-ranked Utah, eighth-ranked Texas and ninth-ranked Tennessee stuck without options when they were hoping to be traveling to prepare for their Saturday matchups.

In three of the weekend’s bigger games, the Utes play at No. 22 Arizona, the Texas Longhorns visit No. 24 LSU, while the Vols are headed to Texas A&M.

"The Southeastern Conference is aware of the FAA’s nationwide ground stop and the potential impact on team travel," the league told the Associated Press. "We are in close communication with our member institutions to assess potential disruptions and coordinate appropriate responses.

Meanwhile, some schools, like Auburn and Purdue, traveled in buses to reach their destinations.

The Big 12 Conference said in a statement it was evaluating potential changes to Saturday’s football schedule.

Washington spokesperson Kurt Svoboda said the Huskies planned to fly out Friday to be able to take on Michigan State.

Other schools affected by the stoppage included No. 19 Ole Miss, Baylor, Kansas State, Washington and Minnesota, FOX Sports reported.

It was not clear whether any referees had trouble making itIt also was unclear whether any referees, who typically fly to their assignments the day before games, would have trouble making it to their games. The Big Ten said in a statement that all of its officials had arrived for their scheduled assignments Saturday.

The stop was not expected to have a major impact on Sunday’s NFL games, since those teams typically travel on Saturdays.

At least four NBA teams also faced travel problems. The Brooklyn Nets had just boarded a plan for Memphis when the ground stop began. The Detroit Pistons, the Chicago Bulls and the Memphis Grizzlies were all expecting to fly Friday night.

Some games were being rescheduled for later in day Saturday because of potential travel delays, ESPN reported.

The Source

Information for this story came from The Associated Press, ESPN and FOX Sports. This story was reported from Orlando.