Sometimes a college football story starts well before kickoff, and Tulane’s did on Friday night. What was supposed to be a routine trip to Houston turned into a travel disruption after a nationwide ground stop interrupted the team’s planned flight before the Saturday matchup against the Rice Owls.
According to FOX 8 Local First and WVUE, Tulane football left its on-campus facility around 7:30 p.m. Friday night and was on the runway waiting to take off when the ground stop went into effect. Instead of flying, The Tulane switched to buses and made the trip to Houston, Texas.
A schedule change before kickoff
The travel issue did not stay confined to Friday night. The game against the Rice Owls was originally scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, but it was pushed back to 3:30 p.m. That gave Tulane more time to absorb an unexpected travel change, even if it did not remove the inconvenience.
On the surface, this is a logistics note. In practice, it is the sort of small disruption that can affect everything from arrival routines to pregame preparation. Tulane did not lose the trip, but it did have to rework it at the last minute.
That is why the detail matters. A 5.5 hour change in timing would be notable on its own, but paired with a ground stop and a bus trip to Houston, it turned Tulane vs Rice into a much less ordinary Saturday matchup. For Tulane football, the challenge was not just the opponent. It was getting there under changed conditions and then adjusting once the start time moved from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
