It appears that Saturday afternoon’s game between Notre Dame and Boston College will go off without a hitch. That became a question early Friday evening when an unknown issue with air traffic control communications forced the FAA to issue a nationwide ground stop.
Right after the ground stop was called, it became clear that several college football games across the country were in jeopardy of being delayed. Some teams won’t see any issues, while others are hoping the ground stop is lifted soon or facing potentially very long drives to their road games.
The good news for Boston College and Notre Dame is that the Eagles were in the air before the ground stop was announced. BC has reportedly since landed safely in South Bend.
Their arrival means that the Irish can continue a rivalry that’s been one-sided of late but remains one of the more beloved head-to-head matchups in the sport, if only because the uniform showdown is always pretty great.
This year, the Irish are looking to continue making their case for a high College Football Playoff seed after jumping from No. 11 to No. 5 this past week with their win over Miami.
Of course, Notre Dame isn't the only school who spent at least a few hours wondering if their game was getting played on Saturday. There are several teams that have CFP implications that could be forced to find another day, or even another week to play those games.
Considering how often CFP Chair Hunter Yurachek has talked about a team's schedule in explaining how one school got ranked over another, there really aren't many games that don't have some kind of playoff implication.
Notre Dame-Boston College joins notable teams in the air or landed and game is definitely on
- Boston College (at Notre Dame)
- Cincinnati (at Iowa State)
- Duke (at Miami)
- JMU (at UConn)
- Kansas (at WVU)
- Louisville (at UNC)
- Michigan (at Oregon) … flew Thursday
- Missouri (at Georgia)
- Nebraska (at Rutgers)
- Stanford (at Virginia Tech) … flew Thursday
- Syracuse (at NC State)
- Texas Tech (at Oklahoma State)
- UAB (at Temple)
- Wisconsin (at Maryland)
- Alabama is driving to Vanderbilt
- East Carolina is driving to Charlotte
- Georgia Tech is driving to Clemson
Teams with flights caught in FAA groundstop
- Arizona State (at UCF)
- Baylor (to BYU)
- FAU (to Tulsa)
- Kansas State (to TCU)
- Minnesota (to Penn State)
- Ole Miss (to Oklahoma)
- Purdue (to Iowa)
- Tennessee (to Texas A&M)
- Texas (to LSU)
- Tulane (to Rice)
- UNLV (to New Mexico)
- Utah (at Arizona)
- Washington (to Michigan State)
Texas vs LSU, Tennessee vs Texas A&M, and Utah vs Arizona are the three games that look like they have the most playoff implications at the moment.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame vs Boston College will get played and hopefully the Fighting Irish will improve to 9-1.
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