US sports scramble back to normal after FAA ground stop upends team travel

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Major sporting events slowly returned to normal Saturday after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide for several hours a day earlier, disrupting…

Major sporting events slowly returned to normal Saturday after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide for several hours a day earlier, disrupting travel plans for professional and college teams across the country.

Most college football teams playing Saturday travel the day before kickoff, and a number of games were delayed by hours to give visiting programs more time to arrive and prepare. No. 2 Utah’s game at No. 22 Arizona was pushed back three hours, as was Arizona State’s game at Central Florida. Other teams, like Auburn, opted for charter buses. One way or another, most teams found a solution.

There was, of course, one major exception: the No. 19 Mississippi game at Oklahoma will now compete with the NFL with a kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m. EST on Sunday.

The NFL benefitted from its Sunday slate, as teams typically travel the day before their games. Friday’s flight stoppage ultimately had the biggest impact on official Don Willard, who will work as a referee in two games on the same day. Willard will call the Dolphins-Colts game at 1 p.m. EST before heading 112 miles east for a Steelers-Bengals Sunday Night Football contest.

JuJu Watkins and her third-ranked Southern California teammates had just boarded their flight to face top-ranked South Carolina when the ground stop was issued. The Trojans women’s basketball team stayed in Los Angeles for the night after being deplaned, and their departure for Greenville was pushed to Saturday.

In women’s soccer, the Utah Royals already were in the Washington, D.C., area ahead of their National Women’s Soccer League semifinal against the Washington Spirit on Saturday. The Kansas City Current were supposed to depart Friday for their semifinal against Gotham FC on Sunday in New York.

The Current told ESPN they were “collaborating with key stakeholders, including the NWSL and our charter partner, to identify next steps in order to arrive safely ahead of our match against Gotham FC on Sunday.”

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