College Football Week 11 Schedule: Updated Kickoff Times Amid FAA Restrictions

College football’s Week 11 schedule looks different than it did Friday morning, as a nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop stranded road teams across the country, forced eight Saturday kickoffs to move and pushed one SEC game to Sunday.

The biggest shift sends Ole Miss at Oklahoma to Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, while No. 2 Utah’s trip to Arizona now kicks off at 10:30 p.m. ET after the Utes couldn’t get a flight to Tucson until Saturday morning.

Which Week 11 kickoffs changed Saturday?

West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Rich Rodriguez | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Kansas at West Virginia is the only affected game that moved earlier, with kickoff in Morgantown jumping from 5:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Every other change pushed the start back to give visiting teams time to recover from a night spent waiting on planes or riding buses.

Auburn at Mississippi State slid from noon to 4:15 p.m. ET after the Tigers abandoned their delayed flight and bused to Starkville. Tulane at Rice moved from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET, with the Green Wave also making the trip to Houston by bus.

Arizona State at UCF and Washington at Michigan State now share the 5:30 p.m. ET window. The Sun Devils got off their plane Friday and rebooked their flight to Orlando for Saturday morning, so their kickoff moved back two hours from 3:30 p.m. Washington’s game in East Lansing shifted from 4:15 p.m.

Baylor at BYU moved from 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET. Florida Atlantic at Tulsa went from 3:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. ET after the Owls pushed their departure to Saturday morning.

Utah at Arizona got the longest delay of any game still being played Saturday, sliding three hours from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET. The Utes tried to leave Friday night after flights resumed, but the pilots had run out of duty hours and the plane couldn’t take off.

Ole Miss at Oklahoma moves to Sunday

Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The SEC moved Ole Miss at Oklahoma from Saturday at 4:15 p.m. ET to Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, putting a ranked conference game up against the NFL’s early slate. The league said the Rebels couldn’t leave Oxford Friday night. Once the stop lifted, “a late-night departure could not be accommodated by the charter company” Ole Miss had hired, which delayed the trip until Saturday afternoon.

Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny said Commissioner Greg Sankey made the call “over our strong objection.” Sankey also told the Sooners that “our failure to play on Sunday at the directed time would result in a forfeit.” Denny added that Oklahoma had been told Ole Miss “explored every avenue” to reach Norman on Saturday.

“Put simply, this decision isn’t fair to our athletes, our institution, or to Sooner Nation,” Denny said. “We’ve been given no other choice. We are obligated to play this game when directed, but we remained steadfast in our belief that the wrong outcome was reached this evening.”

The Sunday date also costs both programs a day of preparation for Week 12. That’s a heavy price for the 6-3 Rebels, who can’t afford another loss.

How stranded teams reached their games

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a press conference at Union Terminal in Cincinnati | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The ground stop took effect Friday afternoon, right when most road teams were due to fly. It lasted more than four hours before the FAA cleared departures. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed a telecommunications outage, and it was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023.

Several programs didn’t wait for flights to resume. Purdue switched to buses for its trip to Iowa and North Texas bused to San Antonio to face UTSA. Both games kept their original kickoff times.

Texas and Tennessee were among the programs stranded on the ground Friday. Both returned to campus during the stoppage and weren’t expected to leave until late Friday at the earliest, so each will play a major SEC road game on less sleep than usual.

Even Georgia, playing at home, had to scramble. Kirby Smart said assistant coaches who were out recruiting Friday had to get back to Athens for the Missouri game. “The text thread is popping,” Smart said, before adding, “Maybe if we actually had regional conferences, we could just drive to the games.”

Tennessee at Texas A&M is still set for 3 p.m. ET, Missouri at Georgia stays at 3:30 p.m. ET and Texas at LSU keeps its 7:30 p.m. ET slot. Ole Miss and Oklahoma close out the week Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.

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