Arizona State's game at UCF was pushed back to 5:30 p.m. ET on Friday night after the FAA lifted a nationwide ground stop that had snarled departures across the country. The game had been set for 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, but the late reset turned a normal road trip into a hurried overnight scramble.
That change matters because it hit a team already dealing with a roughly 1,900-mile flight for a game two time zones away, the kind of trip Coach Kenny Dillingham said his teams usually handle by leaving on Friday. Instead, Arizona State sat on a plane for two hours waiting to depart for Orlando after the FAA grounded all domestic departures at 3:54 p.m. ET, then returned to the team facility after leaving the packed airport.
Dillingham said, "You can’t predict a worldwide stoppage," and the rest of the night showed exactly what he meant. The schools did not have the luxury of a normal travel window, and the delay cut into the hours that would normally go to settling in, recovering and running a full pregame routine before Saturday's kickoff.
Joe Connolly said all of Arizona State's luggage was still on the plane, and he added that 20 to 30 Sun Devil players were expected to be without access to their apartments Friday night. He said, "Lots of guys are without their wallets and keys," a small line that captured the bigger problem: the team was trying to prepare for a football game while basic pieces of normal life were still stuck on the tarmac.
Connolly also said, "We barely have enough time to get our pregame meal down the hatch," which left little doubt about how compressed the schedule had become once the flight finally resumed. The lag between a Friday afternoon ground stop and a late-night lift meant Arizona State had to reset its plans fast, and the only thing that survived the disruption was the game itself, now set for 5:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.
