Bison putting aside travel delay in advance of Hawaii game

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

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HONOLULU — If there was any stress of a 13-hour delay leaving Fargo’s Hector International Airport on Thursday, the North Dakota State players and staff weren’t showing it on Friday.

The team was scheduled to depart at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, but mechanical issues with Eastern Airlines, the charter company hired to fly the Bison to Honolulu, pushed that back to just before 1 a.m. Friday. The team landed at 4:45 a.m. local time.

The schedule remained as is on Friday with a tour of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor at 11 a.m., some free time after that followed by football-related matters. NDSU and the Rainbow Warriors kick off at 10 p.m. Central time in a game that will be aired on The CW.

“I’ve always said we have such a mature group and they seem to be really resilient,” said NDSU athletic director Matt Larsen. “Whether it was watching them when we first got here … nothing surprises you with this group of guys and I think they’ve handled it really well.”

The airline notified the school in advance it was having problems, so it wasn’t as if the team was already at the airport. The makeshift schedule on Thursday had the Bison practicing in Fargo with not the entire squad. There were players not on the travel roster who had already headed home or couldn’t get out of classes.

“But they handled that beautifully,” said head coach Tim Polasek. “I could sense there was just an eagerness to want to get on that plane and get some rest. I personally don’t think until tomorrow morning around 10, 11 o’clock when I see them if I’ll recognize anything unusual with our biorhythms or whatever but they’ve been upbeat.”

At least the Bison got to Hawaii before the FAA shutdown of all airports in the United States. That news hit the team while they were on the Pearl Harbor tour, specifically while watching a 23-minute movie explaining the Pearl Harbor attack.

“We’re watching a movie about a World War, and to get out of the theatre and see all the texts was pretty remarkable,” Polasek said. “Obviously we’re thankful to be here so we get a chance to play a football game.”

The FAA lifted the shutdown in the early evening, but it was still unclear if, or how, it will affect other Mountain West Conference games. Wyoming had yet to depart for its game at Texas-El Paso and UNLV was grounded in Las Vegas and hadn’t left for its game at New Mexico.

Both were scheduled to fly out later Friday night. San Jose State planned on flying Saturday morning to play at Air Force.

NDSU’s Eastern Airlines charter remained in Hawaii and Larsen, while the shutdown was in progress, hadn’t heard anything from the company.

“Fortunately, we’re here,” he said. “There are a lot of schools that hadn’t made it to their destinations yet. To be here is a real positive and hopefully this gets squared away before we head back tomorrow night.”

Wyoming, UNLV, Air Force, San Jose State and New Mexico are all either chasing a Mountain West title or bowl eligibility.

“We’re getting to the point now where all these games matter in terms of standings and conference championship eligibility,” Larsen said. “So hopefully everybody will get a chance to play those games at some point this weekend.”

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• Jeff Kolpack

Jeff Kolpack, the son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he's covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995. He has covered all 10 of NDSU's Division I FCS national football titles and has written four books: "Horns Up," "North Dakota Tough," "Covid Kids" and "They Caught Them Sleeping: How Dot Reinvented the Pretzel." He is also the radio host of "The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack" April through August.

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