Tulane Football vs. Rice Impacted by FAA Ground Stop
· Yahoo Sports
After a bit of a tumultuous Friday, the Tulane Green Wave will now be facing the Rice Owls at 3:30 p.m. CT.
The Green Wave was one of many programs impacted by Friday afternoon's FAA ground stop, which halted domestic air travel for hours ahead of a busy sports weekend due to communication issues related to air traffic control. The ground stop was lifted around 7:30 p.m. CT, but it will take time for operations to return to normal, as thousands of flights were delayed by the outage.
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Tulane was set to leave Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at 2:45 p.m., according to sports information director Jason Corriher, but ultimately returned to campus after the ground stop. The decision was ultimately made to carry the Green Wave to Houston by bus: a roughly 347-mile journey totaling more than five hours by car. Commuting by bus would likely take closer to six hours.
The Green Wave reportedly left campus at 7:30 p.m., and if everything stays on schedule, the team should arrive in Houston between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. local time. Given the short turnaround time from the team's previously-scheduled 1 p.m. kickoff against Rice, the decision was made to push the game to two-and-a-half hours later.
As it stands now, the team is still steadily moving along I-10 towards Houston; though trying to sleep on a bus might not be comfortable, at this point, it's the only way to ensure that the team will reach its destination without any other major hiccups. Tulane is far from the only program impacted by these delays: many other schools have chosen to adjust game times or find alternate modes of travel.
Even with the travel chaos, there's no reason why the Olive Green and Sky Blue shouldn't be completely ready to go on Saturday afternoon. Tulane needs a win now more than ever, as it will look to bounce back from one of the worst losses in program history, which came in a 60-10 defeat by the Tulsa Golden Hurricane last weekend.
The Owls enter the game at the bottom of the American Conference with a 1-8 overall record and a 0-5 mark in league play. On paper, the Green Wave looks like the better team, but the program has struggled heavily this year, especially in the last few weeks.
The mid-afternoon showdown between Rice and Tulane is set to air on ESPN+.