Bryson DeChambeau was one of the 20+ SMU fans, boosters and alumni who were extremely late to Saturday’s College Football Playoff game at Penn State. They were forced to reroute their private jets because the local airport was completely full upon arrival.
As a result, they missed more than an hour of the first half!
State College Regional Airport was actually a topic of discussion earlier this season. Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin complained about its lack of size prior to his team’s trip to Los Angeles to play USC. It was forced to fly out of a Harrisburg, Pa. — approximately 90 minutes away — because the nearby runaway is too small to accommodate the required plane for such a long flight.
To me, that’s one of the things I think we have to discuss is increasing the size of the runway here and the size of the airport for a lot of reasons — for the university, for the community, for businesses, for the athletic department, and for us, now that we’ve decided to make this move as a Big Ten.
To me, that’s something that we need to do for a lot of different reasons, but that that’s a big part of it is you’re talking about adding another two hours to your trip on top of the flight, and I think the flight’s already five-and-a-half hours or whatever it may be, so that’s pretty much a full day.
— James Franklin
Although Saturday’s sequence of events was very different from the one in October, it stemmed from the same root cause. State College’s airport is extremely small.
Most of the Penn State contingency got into town on Thursday or Friday. Plenty of SMU fans did the same. However, some of them decided to fly into of State College on Saturday morning prior to kickoff. A lot of money is tied to the university and its wealthy alumni base so there were plenty of private jets to go around but the timing of those chartered flights proved to be an issue.
SMU fans were late to the game!
State College’s airport was completely full as kickoff quickly approached. There was no more room to house any more planes during the game so they diverted the remaining stragglers to land in Williamsport, which is an hour’s drive away from Beaver Stadium.
Upon arrival to Williamsport, the SMU donors rented a party bus to transport them to the game. Among those on the bus were former Mustangs running back Craig James and former NCAA champion golfer Bryson DeChambeau.
Several jets carrying SMU donors were diverted from the State College airport to Williamsport. They’re in a shuttle (party bus!) en route to the game & will arrive an hour after kick.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) December 21, 2024
Photo by donor Bill Armstrong (bottom left). There's Craig James on right, drink cup raised. pic.twitter.com/p8zyL8EXAg
Not only did those folks miss all of the pregame fanfare, they missed a good chunk of the college football game. Their team was already down by 14 points upon arrival to their seats. Brutal.