Ole Miss players were sent home Friday afternoon and told to come back to the football facility that evening for updates. By the end of the night, the Rebels had an airplane, but no flight crew allowed to fly it.
That's why the Rebels could not leave for Oklahoma until 4:20 p.m. CT Saturday, a full day after a nationwide groundstop froze air travel across the country, Ole Miss said in a statement Saturday. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey's decision to move the game from Saturday to Sunday sparked a fight between Oklahoma and the SEC, with Sooners athletic director Roger Denny offering a "strong objection" to the conference office.
"Like the rest of the nation, we faced unprecedented challenges with Friday's ground stoppage," Ole Miss said in a statement released Saturday afternoon, nearly an hour after its originally scheduled kickoff time at Oklahoma. As we worked through the travel issues and uncertainty surrounding the situation in real time, the goal was always to fly to Norman Friday night and play the game Saturday."
OU fought to keep the game on Saturday, but Sankey told the school that failing to play at the directed time would result in a forfeit. The game Sunday will kick off Sunday at 1 p.m. ET (Noon CT) on the SEC Network. Oklahoma is offering discounted concessions, including $2 hot dogs and beer, and complimentary tickets to other athletic events to draw fans to the rescheduled game.
"Put simply, this decision isn't fair to our athletes, our institution or to Sooner Nation," Denny said in a statement released early Saturday. "But we've been given no other choice. We are obligated to play the game when directed, but we remain steadfast in our belief that the wrong outcome was reached this evening."
"We were told that Ole Miss explored every avenue to travel to Norman and play on Saturday as planned," Denny said. "But, unlike every other team traveling for competition tomorrow, they were unable to find a solution."
The Federal Aviation Administration issued its nationwide groundstop shortly before 3 p.m. CT Friday and lifted it at 7:15 p.m. CT, more than four hours later. It was only the third full groundstop in the country's history.
Ole Miss prepared to depart for Tupelo on its flight to Tupelo after the groundstop, but its charter broker, Air Planning, informed the school that JetBlue could not fly the team to Oklahoma City Friday night.
Ole Miss' problem was purely logistics, the school said.
Ole Miss faced a 55-minute bus ride from campus in Oxford to Tupelo Regional Airport, a facility that handles little scheduled commercial traffic, compounding the fight against the clock. Flight crews are assigned limited duty times and would have exceeded its shift time before departure, Ole Miss said.
Compounding the problem: Tupelo is not a JetBlue hub, so a relief crew was not available to operate the charter, sources told CBS Sports.
"There were no other flight options at that point, and we determined it was too late to put our student-athletes on a bus trip of eight or more hours," Ole Miss said in a statement. "In addition, the flight crew's duty time restrictions prevented us from being able to fly out until Saturday afternoon at the earliest."
Flight crews are required to have at least 10 hours of rest time between shifts.
The Tupelo airport did not handle any arrivals or departures when the groundstop ended Friday night.
Oklahoma voiced concern about the impact on its fans.
"Rescheduling the game has a significant impact, particularly on our fans," Denny said. "Those who have made travel arrangements, accommodations and personal plans around a Saturday game now face unnecessary disruption and hardship. Their time, commitment and investment deserve greater consideration than they were afforded in the conference's decision tonight."
Former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops went a step further Saturday.
"This decision by Greg Sankey is absolutely wrong," Stoops wrote on social media. "All of the Power Four teams found a way to make it to their games, but Ole Miss wouldn't?"
Every other FBS team rescheduled flights or bussed to games on Friday or Saturday, leading to about half a dozen rescheduled kick times on Saturday.
Arizona didn't fly until Saturday morning and didn't land until five hours before kickoff Saturday against UCF at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Auburn left an airport and booked buses for a four-hour road trip to Starkville, Mississippi, and its game at Mississippi State moved to 3:15 p.m. CT Saturday. No. 2 Utah's game at No. 23 Arizona was pushed to 10:30 p.m. ET Saturday after the Utes could not leave Salt Lake City until 10 a.m. MT Saturday.
