NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — The Sooner Schooner was parked on the sideline and there were swaths of empty seats when Oklahoma kicked off Sunday against No. 19 Mississippi after the Rebels didn't arrive in time to play the game as scheduled the previous day.
Oklahoma fans who braved rain and chilly temperatures booed loudly when the Rebels ran out on the field before the start of the game.
Ole Miss arrived in Oklahoma City on Saturday night. The FAA’s decision
to ground all flights on Friday sent sports teams nationwide scrambling for new travel accommodations.
While some other games adjusted kickoff times, Mississippi-Oklahoma was the only FBS game pushed back a day until Sunday.
Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny was upset with the decision, saying the Southeastern Conference threatened the Sooners with a forfeit if they didn't agree to play Sunday.
“I understand that difficult decisions sometimes must be made under extraordinary circumstances,” Denny said in a statement on Saturday. “Put simply, this decision isn’t fair to our athletes, our institution or to Sooner nation.”
Clint and Kelsey Epperson, with their son and a buddy, stood in a steady rain outside Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium before kickoff. They drove three hours from Commerce in northeast Oklahoma — where baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle grew up — to celebrate their son's 10th birthday.
They had bought game tickets in advance and paid $140 to stay in Norman an extra night.
“We were coming, no matter what,” said Clint Epperson, who agreed with Denny that SEC Commissioner Greg Stankey didn’t have enough consideration for the fans in changing the game. “We were an afterthought.”
On a normal game day, the streets outside the stadium are lined with tailgating fans. The mood was subdued Sunday, with a sprinkling of fans wandering around and tents and outerwear dominating the scene.
Oklahoma cut the prices of beer and other concessions to draw fans, and moved basketball and wrestling events to later in the day. Football tickets were available online for as low as $20 in the hours leading up to kickoff.
The temperature when the game started just after noon local time was 44 degrees with 19 mph wind gusts making it feel closer to freezing. The game had originally been scheduled for 3:15 p.m. Saturday, when it was about 10 degrees warmer.
Ole Miss officials insisted they did everything possible to avoid postponing the game, and had every intention to fly to Oklahoma on Friday night and play Saturday. They also reiterated Sankey’s remarks that the school's charter company could not accommodate a late Friday night departure after the stoppage was lifted.
“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,” Ole Miss said in its statement Saturday. “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.”
Ken Gallon, a 20-year Sooners season ticket holder, drove three hours as usual for the game and, like most fans wandering around the stadium before kickoff, was draped in a jacket and a rain poncho.
“I have to agree with the (Oklahoma) AD,” Gallon said. “I think that the commissioner took into account Ole Miss’s whatever and did whatever they wanted and they certainly didn’t do what we wanted, which was play on Saturday.”
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