Oklahoma’s home game against Ole Miss will be played Sunday after the SEC moved the matchup in the wake of Friday’s nationwide flight groundstop, and Sooners athletic director Roger Denny made clear he wanted no part of the change.
The league shifted the game in Norman from Saturday afternoon to Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, noon CT, and Denny said the move came “over our strong objection.” Oklahoma tried to hold the line on Saturday, but SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told the school that not playing at the assigned time would mean a forfeit.
“Put simply, this decision isn’t fair to our athletes, our institution or to Sooner Nation,” Denny said in a statement released early Saturday. “But we’ve been given no other choice. We are obligated to play the game when directed, but we remain steadfast in our belief that the wrong outcome was reached this evening.”
The issue started Friday afternoon when the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop shortly before 3 p.m. CT after communication problems affected multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said switches and routers became overloaded and shut down after producing inconsistent data. The FAA lifted the order at 7:15 p.m.
CT, more than four hours later, after thousands of flights had been delayed or canceled. It was only the third full groundstop in the country’s history.
That chaos hit college football travel plans across the board, but Ole Miss was the lone FBS team that couldn’t get to its game site in time for Saturday. Most teams don’t travel until the day before, so plenty of programs were scrambling.
Kick times around the country shifted slightly, including No. 2 Utah’s game at No.
23 Arizona, which is now set for 10:30 p.m. ET Saturday after the Utes were unable to leave Salt Lake City on Friday.
Ole Miss and Auburn were among four SEC teams grounded for several hours. Auburn’s game at Mississippi State was pushed to 3:15 p.m.
CT Saturday after the Tigers left the airport and took buses for the four-hour ride to Starkville. No.
6 Texas was delayed until after 10 p.m. CT before boarding a flight to face No.
21 LSU on Saturday. Tennessee, meanwhile, managed to rework its travel plans after the groundstop for its longest road trip of the season at Texas A&M.
Ole Miss players were sent home Friday afternoon and told to come back to the football facility that night for updates. The Rebels normally fly out of Tupelo, Mississippi, which is a 55-minute drive from Oxford, and the trip to Oklahoma City is about 90 minutes.
“We are continuing to work through our options and coordinate with the appropriate groups regarding both travel and the game,” an Ole Miss spokesperson told CBS Sports earlier Friday.
CBS Sports reported Friday night that Ole Miss wanted to play Sunday while Oklahoma wanted to keep the game on Saturday, and the league sided with the Rebels. Denny pushed back on that account as well.
“We were told that Ole Miss explored every avenue to travel to Norman and play on Saturday as planned,” Denny said. “But, unlike every other team traveling for competition tomorrow, they were unable to find a solution.”
The game had been set for 3:15 p.m. CT Saturday on SEC Network. Television plans for Sunday have not been announced.
Denny also pointed to the impact on Oklahoma fans who had already made plans around the original kickoff.
“Rescheduling the game has a significant impact, particularly on our fans,” Denny said. “Those who have made travel arrangements, accommodations and personal plans around a Saturday game now face unnecessary disruption and hardship. Their time, commitment and investment deserve greater consideration than they were afforded in the conference’s decision tonight.”
Oklahoma enters at 5-4 overall and 4-4 in the SEC after a 23-7 win at Florida in Jason Witten’s first game as interim offensive coordinator. The Sooners need one more victory to become bowl eligible.
Ole Miss is 6-3 and dropped to No. 19 in the College Football Playoff rankings after a 42-7 home loss to now-No. 1 Georgia.
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A telecommunications outage that rippled through air traffic control created plenty of headaches around the sport on Saturday, including a ground stop that helped force a change to the Oklahoma-Ole Miss schedule. While the Sooners and Rebels dealt with the fallout, ESPNs College GameDay still went on as planned at Boise State, giving college football fans a live look at how the days travel chaos was affecting the broader landscape.
Pat McAfee turned the disruption into part of the show, arriving on horseback in a nod to the travel problems that had already thrown the morning off course. The bit played well with the Boise State crowd, and it was a reminder that even on a messy day for logistics, GameDay can still find a way to lean into the moment. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma Fans Wont Like How This Ole Miss Decision Was Made
A scheduling wrinkle turned into a bigger headache for Oklahoma on Friday, when the SEC moved the Sooners game against Ole Miss from Saturday to Sunday because a nationwide FAA ground stoppage disrupted the Rebels travel plans. The matchup is now set for a noon kickoff, and television coverage has not yet been announced, leaving one more detail hanging over a game that was already drawing plenty of attention.
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A Saturday matchup that had already been circled on the calendar turned into a Sunday afternoon pivot after travel delays tied to a nationwide FAA ground stop kept Ole Miss from leaving Oxford until after 4 p.m. The SEC moved the Oklahoma-Ole Miss game to noon CT on Sunday, and the decision landed with plenty of frustration in Norman because the Sooners were not in favor of the change.
Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny said the league forced the call, adding another layer of tension to a game that had already been thrown off schedule by circumstances far beyond the field. The league also made clear that if the teams did not play Sunday, the result would be a forfeit, leaving Oklahoma in a spot its fans are unlikely to appreciate. [Read more 🡒]