Auburn’s trip to Starkville was supposed to be a noon game. Then the FAA stopped every departing flight in the country on Friday afternoon, and the SEC pushed the kickoff back more than four hours. Teams from Knoxville to Seattle spent Friday night on tarmacs, on buses, or back at their own facilities. Week 11 got messy before anybody kicked a ball.

“Auburn-Mississippi State will move from noon ET to 4:15 p.m. ET, the SEC announces,” Chris Vannini posted the news on X. Auburn never got off the ground, so the Tigers are taking a bus to Starkville, about a four-hour ride. The league said the change was “due to travel issues related to Friday’s FAA ground stoppage.” Auburn is 5-4 and 3-4 in the SEC, and Mississippi State is 4-5 and 2-5, so neither team wants a short week of rest.

The SEC wasn’t alone. Arizona State-UCF moved from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. ET. Baylor-BYU went from 3:30 to 7 p.m., whereas Tulane-Rice moved to 4:30 and FAU-Tulsa jumped from 3:30 to 7:15. Kansas-West Virginia, which wasn’t affected, was pulled up two hours to 3:30 to fill the slot. Utah-Arizona got the biggest shove, to 10:30 p.m. ET, with most of the delays pushing games into the afternoon or early evening.

Ole Miss did not fly to Oklahoma and said it was working through its options on “both travel and the game.” Moving it to Sunday was floated, and the 4:15 p.m. ET kickoff had not changed at last check. Tennessee-Texas A&M stayed at 3 p.m., and Tennessee planned to fly Friday night.

Texas, which sat on the tarmac in Austin, headed back to the airport for LSU. Alabama drove to Vanderbilt. On the officiating side, all eight SEC crews were reported to have arrived, and all Big Ten officials were already on site.

The FAA issued the order at 3:54 p.m. ET “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy cited a communication problem hitting every air route traffic control center. CBS reported that an update to the private network connecting the system caused a reboot, which then crashed.

Duffy later blamed “old hardware” and said the system runs on copper lines from the 1980s. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no sign of an attack and added, “This isn’t another 9/11.” It was the only second nationwide ground stop since 9/11. It lasted about four hours, and the backlog is still working through the system.

“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,” Duffy said.

Most college teams travel by charter, and those flights don’t get priority when airports begin operating again. The SEC said it would continue monitoring the situation and make further adjustments if needed.

The ground stop being lifted was the only first hurdle. Teams still had to get back in the air and reach their destinations, with more than 20 programs dealing with travel plans.

Utah, Washington among College teams hit by ongoing flight disruptions

Utah tried to leave Friday night, but the Utes are flying on Saturday, and the kickoff moved three hours. BYU can’t play on Sundays because of religious restrictions, so Baylor-BYU had to happen on Saturday.

Washington had a smaller problem: deplane, go back to campus, then head back to Boeing Field. Assistant athletic director Jeff Bechthold said, “The team had not yet boarded its plane before the FAA grounded all flights. We await word, just like the rest of the country.”

Oregon State was still looking for a way to Boise State, where ESPN’s College GameDay is set up, and a nine-hour bus ride wasn’t realistic.