Copyright Augusta Free Press
There’s a lot more than you would that goes into playing a college football game on the other side of the continent. “The bulk of your planning is done ahead of time, and it’s already set. We knew that we were going to leave on Thursday, way before because you have to, I mean, you’re chartering a flight to go west, and have to get hotel reservations and bus companies and all the stuff that goes with it,” UVA Football coach Tony Elliott said, ahead of his team’s trip to play at Cal on Saturday. As I’m writing this, obviously, the team and traveling party are already in Northern California, having gotten into town last night, gotten in a walk-through, and everybody’s settling in for a night of rest ahead of gameday. It helps that the ACC and ESPN didn’t set the game for a late-night ET kickoff, as has been the case for two other cross-country in-conference Cal opponents, Duke and UNC, who both had start times in the 10 p.m. ET hour in games at Cal in games earlier this season. The late start time changes your whole prep schedule for the week ahead of the game, because you have to get everybody to reset their body clocks even before getting on the plane. Also upsets your body clocks for the week after, trying to get back to East Coast time. The UVA-Cal game kicks off at 3:45 p.m. ET, so, even steven, as far as that goes. ICYMI Go west, young men: What UVA Football fans need to know about Cal UVA Football: Injury and availability report for Week 10 game at Cal UVA Football: Details for Cal game this weekend, with a big surprise on the start time First look: Cal licking its wounds after come-from-ahead loss at Virginia Tech There are still issues just with all the travel and its effect on the body and energy levels that need to be accounted for. Elliott said the staff consulted with other college staffs and folks in NFL organizations to get tips on how to handle the travel aspect of Cal week. “We’ve had conversation about, what’s the right timing? When do you go? How do you get acclimated to the time change? What’s the meal schedule? Should you should you get out there and do some stretching? Do you want to have a fast Friday practice? What’s the best combination? We took all that information and evaluated it, and then also looked at where our team is right now to help us finalize our plan to travel out west,” Elliott said. Logistics, man. Sounds like a military operation. The practice schedule on Wednesday had to be thought through because of the travel time. And then, another part of the planning that I hadn’t taken into account is – just getting all the equipment out west. It’s a four-day trip for the guys driving the tractor-trailer to get to the West Coast. The impact: “I’ll just give you an example,” Elliott said. “I let the seniors pick the uniform combination, right? They do it every week, and we do it on Mondays, and typically it’s not an issue when we pick it on Monday, but we had to pick the combination two weeks in advance, and we also had to stipulation we had to wear the same color helmet two weeks in a row, because as soon as we came off of the North Carolina game, we wanted to pack it on the trunk, because the tractor-trailer was going to get back at 8, 9 p.m. on Saturday, and it’s leaving 4 p.m. on Sunday, and everything’s gotta be packed, so it really wasn’t enough time.” That’s not all. When his team left the practice field on Wednesday, the last pre-game practice before the team boarded the plane for California, the equipment staff had to pack shoulder pads and the rest of the auxiliary equipment to get those items on the plane. “That means you got to carry less luggage, so everybody’s going to be wearing the same clothes for a couple days, because of the weight requirements on the plane,” Elliott said. It’s not getting on a bus for a quick trip to Blacksburg or Chapel Hill. “Really, really grateful and appreciative of all the folks, folks that don’t get recognized, for the tremendous amount of work that’s gone into trying to make this as normal of a trip, and just like any other road trip, even though it’s got a lot of dynamics to it,” Elliott said.
