Sean Duffy urges college football teams to reach out to FAA as schools scramble to travel after nationwide ground stop

False starts and delayed touchdowns.Dozens of college football teams have called audibles and are scrambling to reach their destinations for this weekend’s games after the Federal Aviation Administration issued — and has since lifted — an extremely rare nationwide ground stop.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday night that travel officials would help stranded teams get to their games on Saturday after they were stuck at home and on the tarmac.“As I mentioned, we’re going to allow for general aviation,” Duffy said during a press conference at the White House Friday night.“Those larger movements to take place as a priority.Smaller movements will take a lower priority.

And so if you talk about football teams moving, many of those are on charters and there’s a lot of individuals on those charter planes.”“So I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA, to schedule their flight times and make sure they can move to make sure we have games going off tomorrow.”The FAA’s ground stop was announced Friday afternoon after air traffic control facilities experienced communication and radar instability issues, leaving thousands of flights grounded.Duffy blamed the nationwide grounding on the “DECADES-OLD” air traffic control system running on analog equipment.The ground stop was lifted just after 8:30 p.m., but it still left thousands of flights delayed and canceled, including some top FBS teams that were due to fly out Friday, a typical travel day in college sports.Saturday’s College Football slate — its 11th of the season — will feature multiple start-time changes due to the FAA’s unprecedented move.Top college teams affected by the flight suspension included a handful of Top-25 ranked teams such as Tennessee, Texas and Ole Miss.Other programs impacted include Tulane, Baylor, San Jose, Washington, Minnesota, FAU, Utah, Arizona State, Auburn, Purdue and North Texas.Auburn, Purdue, Tulane and North Texas were origi...