Travel issues are nothing new to college sports programs. However, a nationwide flight disruption the day before a huge weekend of college football is unprecedented territory.
Fortunately, before the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all domestic flights on Friday afternoon, the Texas Tech football team reportedly made it to Oklahoma, where they will take on Oklahoma State tomorrow night. That news has been reported by several sources, including David Ubben, a national college football writer for The Athletic.
This is an unprecedented issue facing college sports teams. Only once since the September 11, 2001, attacks on America has the FAA grounded all flights. In January of 2023, a system outage caused all flights to be grounded for around an hour in the morning.
Texas Tech made it to Oklahoma https://t.co/5RwBYKkUCn
— David Ubben (@davidubben) November 13, 2026
Friday's nationwide grounding feels like it might take longer to lift. It has already been in place since 3:16 p.m. Central. That has left over 10,000 flights delayed and 1,700 canceled. Many of those will impact college sports teams and refereeing crews traveling to games scheduled for this weekend.
Having this disruption on a Friday in the middle of the college football season could potentially throw a kink in this year's schedule. If teams or officials are unable to travel to their destinations in time to play their scheduled games, the NCAA will have to make a decision as to whether the missed games will be made up. Given that we are already in mid-November, finding time to reschedule games could prove almost impossible.
What's more, even if the flight ban is lifted later this evening, it will put some teams at a massive disadvantage. Those who were not able to make it to their destination before the flight disruption will have a compacted schedule, one that would interrupt their normal road game routines.
LBK ➡️ OKC#WreckEm | @ValeroEnergy pic.twitter.com/Fx8ztdfBSX
— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) November 13, 2026
That actually happened to the Texas Tech football team in 2022. Because of bad weather near the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the team's flight from Lubbock sat on the tarmac from 12:30 p.m. until 8:05 p.m. As a result, the Red Raiders didn't arrive for their game against TCU until late Friday evening. The program even had dinner delivered to the players as they sat on the airport runway.
That won't be the case this year as the Red Raiders are already on the ground in Oklahoma. However, the national flight stoppage could have a major impact on this weekend's college sports schedule.
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