ORLANDO, Fla. — UCF’s home game in Orlando against Arizona State on Saturday will start two hours later than planned, with kickoff pushed from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. after Friday’s nationwide air traffic halt left the Sun Devils stuck in Arizona.
The Federal Aviation Administration stopped flights across the country on Friday because of communication problems. That kept Arizona State on the ground in Phoenix, where the team had been scheduled to leave on a 4 p.m. charter bound for Orlando. Players got off the plane and headed back to the Tempe campus to regroup.
The revised plan calls for the Sun Devils to fly out Saturday morning, with departure expected around 8 a.m. and arrival in Florida shortly after noon, leaving a tight window before the new kickoff.
Arizona State was far from alone. More than a dozen teams got tangled in the shutdown, which ran beyond four hours, among them fellow Big 12 programs Baylor, Kansas State and Utah. Most college football teams travel the day before a Saturday game, so the timing left schools from Washington to Minnesota stranded as they tried to leave for road trips.
The Big 12 said Friday evening that it was weighing changes to the Saturday schedule and would keep tracking travel problems with its member schools.
For UCF fans, the change means a later evening at the stadium on the east side of Orlando. Anyone planning to tailgate or head to the game should build their day around the 5:30 p.m. start and watch for any further updates from the school. Parking lots and nearby roads may fill later than usual, so arriving early is still a good idea.
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