Utah’s trip to Tucson hit an unexpected snag Friday when the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop, delaying the No. 2 Utes’ flight to face No.
23 Arizona on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. MST.
The team was forced back to its football facility on campus while it waited out the disruption, according to sources. An athletics spokesperson said there were no updates on Utah’s travel plans as of now.
The FAA said the issue stemmed from a communication problem affecting air traffic control centers across the country. In a statement Friday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.
FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,”
Utah is hardly the only team caught in the mess. Utah State’s football team reportedly couldn’t take off from Logan for its game at San Diego State, while Baylor remained in Waco, Texas, ahead of Saturday’s matchup at BYU. Tennessee, Texas, Ole Miss, Kansas State, Washington and others were also dealing with travel delays.
The broader impact has already reached the schedule itself. Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of homeland security, told reporters at the White House, “We have not discussed any timeframe” for resolving the FAA communications outage.
That uncertainty has put several Saturday games in doubt, including multiple Big 12 contests. The conference said in a statement, “Due to the national FAA ground stop impacting team travel, the Big 12 Conference is evaluating potential changes to Saturday’s football schedule,” and added, “The Conference will continue to monitor the travel disruptions alongside its member institutions and provide updates for Saturday’s games.”
BYU’s game against Baylor is set for 1:30 MST, while Utah’s options remain limited. A bus ride from Salt Lake City to Tucson would take around 12 hours, making that route an unlikely fallback.
For now, it’s a waiting game.
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