Hurricane Helene: Storm causes flight delays for Stanford ahead of trip to Clemson

Hurricane Helene strengthened to a Cat 4 on Thursday night before approaching landfall in Florida. And the powerful storm figures to cause an extensive number of problems across the United States for the college football weekend. The Stanford Cardinal were one of the first teams to have issues. According to Chapel Fowler, a team spokesperson said after multiple delays and a cancellation, the team is still on track to make it to South Carolina for the Clemson game. They are ‘expecting a departure tomorrow morning,” according to the representative.

It looks like Chapel Fowler found the flight that Stanford will be taking from San Francisco to Greenville, SC on Friday. They’ll leave San Francisco at 10:15 AM and landing in Greenville at 5:48 PM EST.

Don’t have it directly from team, but this appears to be Stanford’s contingency plan after a Thurs flight cancellation … a Fri flight from San Fran to GSP. Under this timing, they’d land a little over 24 hrs before kickoff https://t.co/hsaXEX8eLc pic.twitter.com/OdXH5nDniO

— Chapel Fowler (@chapelfowler) September 27, 2024

Hurricane Helene had max sustained winds of 140 miles per hour at the time of landfall in Florida at around 11:20 PM EST on Thursday, September 26th. The storm is also expected to bring with it catastrophic storm surge in the state of Florida and life-threatening winds. It figures to be a major problem this weekend across the college football landscape, as three different states on the East Coast have already declared a state of emergency.

While Stanford lost Week 1 to TCU 34-27, they bounced back with a 41-7 win over Cal Poly and a 26-24 win over Syracuse. Cardinal quarterback Ashton Daniels has been decent the first few games, completing 61.5% of his passes for 562 yards, while tossing in four touchdowns with three interceptions. As a runner, Daniels has 163 rushing yards already on the ground, leading the team in that stat category.

The most dominant receiver for Stanford is without a doubt, Elic Ayomanor. He looks the part of an NFL receiver and quite frankly, has the film to back that up. Ayomanor made one of the best catches of the 2024 season against Syracuse, when he hauled in this beautiful one-handed snag. So far this year, he’s hauled in 17 catches for 234 yards and a touchdown.

Stanford and Clemson are set to tangle on Saturday, Sept. 28th. Kick time for that one is set for 7:00 PM EST and the game will be nationally televised on ESPN.