DELAYED: Arizona State's Team Charter to Orlando Stopped due to National Ground Stoppage
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The Sun Devils have been stopped, and I don't mean on the football field.
According to multiple outlets, Arizona State football's charter plane to Orlando has been affected by the nationwide FAA ground stoppage at airports across the country.
Via ABC News, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop Friday for all airlines "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety."
ASU was scheduled to take off around 3:30 p.m. MST, set to land in Florida at 9:30 p.m. EST after the four-to-five- hour flight.
However, the flight has been pushed back, along with every other flight in the country.
There is a solid chance ASU does not leave until around 9 p.m. local time, at the earliest, making their arrival time set around the early morning.
Arizona State is one of many college football teams that are currently affected by the ground stop, as the Nov. 14 college football schedule remains in jeopardy.
"There's numerous college football teams that have yet to fly to their destinations," ESPN's Pete Thamel said. "If this continues, it could significantly impact college football tomorrow."
Kenny Dillingham was asked about his travel schedule and plan for UCF this week:
"We're keeping everything the same about the travel. When you're going across the country. Pretty much, we just get there way later. So we leave at two, we get in at 8:30. But we're gonna pretty much stay in our own time zone. So, we'll bed check at 11, 11:30 sometimes, which is 9:30, 10 here, and then we'll wake them up at 10 o'clock their time. So we'll try not to adjust."
"When you land and it's dark, and you go to a hotel, you don't know what time it is, so you may as well just act like it's eight. So we're not doing much adjustment of body clocks. We're just kind of rolling in and out."
"We (usually) practice in the morning. So anytime you're a morning team, West Coast going east, the earliest you can kick off is at nine, and we practice at nine. So the 9 am. is real, just because you got to wake up at 530 and be ready. But if it's not a 9 am. kickoff, our time, It's 11 o'clock (kickoff vs. UCF), waking up at seven. That's not the end of the world."
The "in and out" of Dillingham's plan has been stopped at the "in" portion. ASU's delay could throw a major wrench into what is a very important game for the program in Orlando.
Safety, of course, comes first. But this nationwide delay could send shockwaves through the college football nation.
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Dan Allison is a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, graduating Cum Laude in Sports Journalism. He currently works for the Rio Rancho Observer and the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico and has covering high school sports in both New Mexico and Arizona and he is a contributor to High School On SI. He began contributing to Arizona State Sun Devils On SI in 2026.