Alabama and Wisconsin will kick off at 11 a.m. CT in the showcase game of Saturday’s Week 3 college football schedule. But what did it take for the get to their first road game of the season?
Kalen DeBoer will coach his first road game with Alabama on Saturday against Wisconsin. (Gary Cosby Jr. / USA Today)
“Planning for away trips starts immediately after the postseason,” said Alison Alabama’s first-year director of football performance nutrition. “So when I got here (in January) is basically when the planning for this game started. The things that we really have to fine-tune and oversee is menu development, special diets, food preparation, packing the food and storage, working with travel coordinators, delivery of food — whether that’s for the bus, light, at the stadium and then making sure that we have like hydration stations kind of set up all throughout that as well. A lot goes into it.”
So how will things be different under DeBoer? After 17 years with Nick as their coach, the Tide had a regimented road schedule.
Friday night dinner was at 6:15 p.m. There were two double buffet lines in the center of the ballroom — staff on one side and players on the other. The head coach’s table included six seats for the offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator, the special teams coordinator, the offensive line coach and the defensive backs coach.
From there, the schedule worked backward.
“We based everything off eating dinner at 6:15 p.m.,” said Ponder, who is in his fifth year. “It didn’t matter if we were playing in Bangladesh. We needed to leave in time enough to eat dinner in Bangladesh at 6:15 p.m. on Friday.”
was a stickler for the meal room to be set his way, so much so that Alabama sent staff members ahead of time to check the hotel facilities. It will be the same setup this weekend, although DeBoer hasn’t shown a preference for such things, but there will be changes.
Dinner will be a little later than 6:15 p.m., now tentatively scheduled for 6:35 p.m. Under the team meeting was held in Tuscaloosa before the team’s departure. Now, the team will meet after dinner, followed by other position meetings. A led team would see a movie if the game was late in the day on Saturday. That won’t continue under DeBoer.
The synergy between the Alabama operations staff and outside resources needed to pull off a road trip is the difference between a clean operation and a messy situation. Winning the game is a task in itself, but the goal beforehand is making sure that the hours leading up to kickoff and during the game are as comfortable as possible.
“Our coaches should only have to worry about recruiting and coaching,” Ponder said. “We’ve got other people to worry about all of the other
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