Arizona State made it to Orlando on Saturday, but the Sun Devils got there after a long and messy travel wait that forced a change to their kickoff against UCF.
ASU’s charter, originally scheduled to leave Friday afternoon, finally took off at 7:25 a.m. local time Saturday after a 17-hour delay tied to a nationwide FAA ground stoppage. The flight still moved quickly once it was airborne, reaching Orlando International Airport in three hours and 22 minutes.
Kenny Dillingham’s team landed at 12:47 p.m. EST, leaving less than three hours before the scheduled start of ASU-UCF.
With some extra room in Central Florida, officials pushed the game from 3:30 p.m. EST to 5:30 p.m.
EST.
Even with the later start, the day remains a “show and go” for Sun Devil football. ASU will stop at a hotel for a meal and meetings before heading to UCF’s “Bounce House.”
Dillingham downplayed the disruption when asked about it by The Athletic.
“I’ve coached high school games before where we’ve had four-hour bus rides, so let’s dance!”
“There’s really nothing you can do about it. It is what it is.
And it’s not like they’re gonna count it as .75 in the loss column if you lose. If you make a big deal about it with your team, then it’s a big deal.
I’m trying to make it as un-big of a deal as we can.”
As of Saturday morning, seven college football games had been adjusted to new kickoff times, and Sports Business Journal had a tracker monitoring the teams affected. The list included 19 games grounded by the FAA stoppage: Arizona State at UCF, Auburn at Mississippi State, Baylor at BYU, Colorado State at Washington State, FAU at Tulsa, Kansas State at TCU, Minnesota at Penn State, Ole Miss at Oklahoma, Oregon State at Boise State, Purdue at Iowa, San Jose State at Air Force, Tennessee at Texas A&M, Texas at LSU, Tulane at Rice, UNLV at New Mexico, Utah at Arizona, Utah State at San Diego State, Washington at Michigan State and Wyoming at UTEP.
Baylor, Utah and Kansas State joined ASU as Big 12 programs affected by the FAA ground stop. Utah is scheduled to travel to Arizona to face the Wildcats.
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