First Posted: 12/6/2014
INDIANAPOLIS — There was great interest in what Ohio State’s game plan against Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game Saturday night would be with No. 3 quarterback Cardale Jones running the offense.
But before that game kicked off, the Buckeyes had already used another game plan. And like the one on the field, the goal was for everything to run smoothly and avoid unpleasant surprises.
Every major college football team has another team working behind the scenes each time it goes on the road.
Transporting, lodging, feeding and equipping a team takes planning, some of which can start as long as two or three years ahead of time.
Uniforms, towels, tape, extra facemasks, video and audio equipment all have to arrive at the right time and the right place.
Hotels, buses, meals, meetings, the layout of the stadium and even the size of the locker room have to be taken into account.
When Ohio State travels, an advance team of 25 to 30 people arrives a day or two ahead of the team to begin preparing on site for a road game. The familiar scarlet and gray semi fans seen outside stadiums at road games typically is loaded Thursday night after practice and the crew drives through the night.
Every road trip has its challenges but the goal is to have none of them or as few as possible.
Like eliminating mistakes on the field, the key is repetition and routine, to the point that the buffet line for team meals is always on the outside wall of the banquet room, nowhere else, for team meals when OSU goes on the road.
Saturday night’s game was a short 2 ½ hour bus ride from Columbus on Friday and the Big Ten handled some of the arrangements for the two teams in the championship game.
But plans for next year’s road games or the ones the year after that are already being put together.
“Our process can start two or three years in advance. Given the quantity of rooms we need, we need to jump on hotels quickly,” said Jen Bulla, assistant business manager for travel in the athletic department at Ohio State.
She coordinates travel for all 36 varsity sports at OSU through her office, but football is her biggest responsibility.
“The Big Ten locations are pretty easy. Most of the teams go back to the same hotels. Some hotels just know how football teams operate. We’re not a wedding reception. We’re not a convention,” she said.
Ohio State sends hotels a script of exactly what is expected from the time the Buckeyes’ traveling party, including administrators and sometimes families of coaches, walks into the hotel until the time it leaves.
No detail is too small to be noticed. Phones and access to pay per view movies are turned off in players’ rooms. Even athletic director Gene Smith’s preference for only healthy snacks in his room is noted.
If there is too much public access to an area of a hotel where Ohio State’s team is staying, eating or having meetings, a curtain might appear across a hallway.
And, once the team wants to head to the stadium for the game, or to the airport after a game, at least four buses have to be in place. That’s very important.
“I leave no margin of error for the buses,” Bulla said.
Bulla has overseen football travel at Ohio State since 2007, meaning she has worked with both Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel. When it comes to taking a team on the road, she says there is not that much difference in what they want.
“There were not that many differences. It was not like they were polar opposites,” she said.
Meyer likes to talk about players going from Point A to Point B for four to six seconds as fast as they can on the field.
Getting a team from Point A to Point B and back home without distractions also takes some skill.
