Oklahoma had to play Ole Miss on Sunday or forfeit, AD says

The Southeastern Conference rescheduled No. 19 Ole Miss Rebels' football game at Oklahoma Sooners from Saturday to Sunday due to travel issues caused by the nationwide air-traffic shutdown on Friday, but the altered date didn't sit well with Sooners athletic director Roger Denny.

In a social-media post early Saturday morning, Denny wrote that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey informed him the Sooners would be required to forfeit the game if they didn't agree to play on Sunday.

Ole Miss said in a statement Saturday that the Rebels tried to arrange travel on Friday night to Norman, Okla., but were unsuccessful.

Denny acknowledged "the extraordinary circumstances" surrounding the Rebels' disrupted travel plans.

He added, "We were told that Ole Miss explored every avenue to travel to Norman and play on Saturday as planned. But, unlike every other team traveling for competition tomorrow, they were unable to find a solution. After multiple conversations with the league office, Commissioner Sankey informed us of his decision to move our game to Sunday, over our strong objection. After continued discussions, he further informed us that our failure to play on Sunday at the directed time would result in a forfeit.

"Rescheduling the game has a significant impact, particularly on our fans. 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."

Denny added, "Put simply, this decision isn't fair to our athletes, our institution, or to Sooner Nation. 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 will continue to fight in the best interests of OU Athletics and always on behalf of our student-athletes and fans."

Ole Miss said it wanted to play on Saturday, which was originally scheduled for 4:15 p.m., with Denny saying Oklahoma was open to playing on Saturday night if needed.

"Like the rest of the nation, we faced unprecedented challenges with Friday's ground stoppage," the Ole Miss statement said. "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."

Ole Miss officials said that after the FAA ground stop was lifted at 8:30 p.m. ET, they were informed by their charter broker, Air Planning, that JetBlue could not fly the team on Friday night.

"At that hour, due to the time required to rescreen the party and travel to the Tupelo airport, the crew's duty time would have expired prior to departure," the Ole Miss statement said. "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. In addition, the flight crew's duty time restrictions prevented us from being able to fly out until Saturday afternoon at the earliest."

Numerous other college football games had their Saturday kickoff times altered because of travel issues on Friday, but the Ole Miss-Oklahoma game was the lone contest moved to a different date.

"We understand other SEC teams were able to keep their games on Saturday, with those visiting teams having available Friday charters or ability to bus to their game in four hours," the Ole Miss statement said. "We did not have those advantages. We regret that the game had to be moved to Sunday, but we took every reasonable action in our power to avoid this scenario. The ground stoppage has been an unfortunate ordeal for all of us, and we are grateful that a solution was reached to play our game."

ESPN reported that an Ole Miss official said that the Rebels' traveling party is now staying in five hotels instead of one.

Entering the game now set for 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, Ole Miss (6-3, 4-3 SEC) is looking to bounce back from a blowout loss to then-No. 2 Georgia last week. Oklahoma (5-4, 3-3) is looking for its first two-game winning streak of the season after downing then-No. 24 Florida last week.

–Field Level Media