🚨 BREAKING: AVIATION MELTDOWN NEARLY GROUNDS LSU-TEXAS SHOWDOWN
BATON ROUGE, La. — The SEC’s marquee matchup between No. 8 Texas and LSU was nearly added to the growing list of college football casualties Friday night, as a historic nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop left the Longhorns stranded in Austin and forced officials to quietly prepare for the unthinkable: a Sunday or Monday kickoff in Death Valley.
The game, scheduled for Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC, will proceed as planned—but only after a frantic hours-long scramble that saw Texas players board a charter jet, be ordered off the plane, return to campus, and ultimately re-board for a late-night flight to Baton Rouge .
The Ground Stop That Paralyzed a Nation
The crisis erupted Friday afternoon when the FAA issued a nationwide ground stop—only the third in U.S. history—citing “extraordinary circumstances” and communications failures across all 22 regional air traffic control centers . More than 10,000 flights were disrupted, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blaming an “incredibly old” air traffic control system running on analog equipment .
For college football programs set to travel on Friday—a standard travel day—the timing could not have been worse. Texas, Tennessee, Ole Miss, and dozens of others found themselves grounded with less than 24 hours before kickoff .
Texas Stranded: “Bayou Bound” Then Grounded
The Longhorns’ travel saga became the defining image of the chaos. At 3:48 p.m. CT, Texas football’s social media account posted a video of players boarding a plane with the caption “Bayou bound” . Nearly an hour later, the team was ordered off the aircraft as the ground stop took effect.
Players returned to campus, gathered in the indoor practice facility, and waited. Behind the scenes, sources told 247Sports that preliminary discussions were underway about moving the game to Sunday or even Monday . Texas officials were reportedly “vehemently opposed” to chartering buses for the eight-hour drive to Baton Rouge, arguing it would put the Longhorns at a competitive disadvantage .
Then, just after 7:20 p.m. CT, the FAA lifted the ground stop . Texas officials scrambled to secure a late-night departure. At 10:28 p.m., the team finally re-boarded, with the program posting a video captioned: “Now we’re Bayou Bound” .
The Domino Effect Across College Football
While LSU-Texas survived intact, the fallout reshaped the broader Week 11 slate. The SEC was forced to move Ole Miss at Oklahoma to Sunday at noon CT after the Rebels could not depart Oxford Friday night—a decision Oklahoma’s athletic director publicly blasted as unfair to fans and staff . Auburn-Mississippi State shifted from noon to 4:15 p.m. ET. Baylor-BYU moved to 7 p.m. ET. Arizona State-UCF was pushed back two hours .
Transportation Secretary Duffy urged affected teams to contact the FAA directly to prioritize charter flights, acknowledging the unusual nature of the situation: “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” .
What It Means for LSU-Texas
For LSU, the disruption represents an unexpected variable in a game with massive College Football Playoff implications. The Tigers (6-3) are desperate to rebound from a loss to Alabama, while Texas (7-2) is positioning itself for a playoff berth . A delayed arrival—or worse, a rescheduled game—could have altered preparation routines for both programs.
Instead, the Longhorns will arrive in Baton Rouge late Friday night, roughly 20 hours before kickoff—not ideal, but far better than the alternatives that were on the table hours earlier.
Tiger Stadium will host its first Texas game since 1953, with ticket prices starting north of $300 and a primetime ABC audience awaiting . The game is on. But for a few tense hours Friday, it was anything but certain.
Stay with us for continuing coverage as the Longhorns arrive in Baton Rouge.
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