Minnesota’s trip to Penn State hit a wall before the Gophers even left town.
The team was set to head to State College on Friday, but a nationwide FAA ground stop scrambled those plans and left Saturday night’s game at Beaver Stadium in doubt. As of Friday evening, the matchup was still listed for 6 p.m. CT on FS1, but multiple reports said rescheduling was being discussed if Minnesota couldn’t get out in time.
The Gophers are already carrying back-to-back losses into the matchup, including a 34-20 defeat to No. 5 UCLA on Nov.
- They’re 5-4 overall and 3-3 in Big Ten play, while Penn State sits at 5-4 and 2-4.
There’s also more than just a regular conference game hanging in the balance. The Governor’s Victory Bell is on the line, and Penn State owns it after a 26-25 win in 2024. Minnesota’s game notes say a win would give the Gophers all four of their rivalry trophies for the first time in program history.
The travel issue started when the FAA imposed a nationwide ground stop on all U.S. airports Friday afternoon. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that it stemmed from a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”
The FAA later described it as a “temporary telecommunications outage” and said every flight had been accounted for. Nationwide ground stops are rare, with CNBC noting the last ones came in January 2023 and on 9/11.
That disruption reached Minnesota before the team could depart Minneapolis. Randy Johnson of the Star Tribune reported the Gophers’ plane to State College was grounded in Minneapolis, and by Friday afternoon the team had gone back to campus. The hope was to fly out Friday morning, but the delay quickly turned into a bigger problem.
By 5 p.m. CT, the team buses were headed back to campus, according to the Pioneer Press, with the possibility of a 15-hour bus trip to eastern Pennsylvania complicating any backup plan.
Minnesota isn’t alone in the mess. A Big Ten spokesperson told The Athletic that the only conference games dealing with issues were Washington-Michigan State and Minnesota-Penn State, and Washington also returned to campus.
The FAA’s 4:46 p.m. CT advisory said the ground stop remained in effect and flights would be released in tiers as conditions allowed.
An update was expected at 10 p.m. CT.
For now, the game remains on the schedule, but the next 12 to 15 hours could decide whether the Gophers and Nittany Lions actually kick off Saturday night.
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