COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Big 10 football season kicks off in Bloomington, Indiana Saturday for the Ohio State football team.
The Hoosier state will welcome the Buckeyes more times this season than any other state in the Big 10 as Ohio State is scheduled to play at Indiana, Purdue and South Bend.
When the season ends, Ohio State will have traveled nearly 2,000 miles one-way. That’s like driving from Columbus to Missoula, Montana.
10TV went behind the scenes to see what it takes to move the team across The Big 10 footprint.
Inside the locker room, a team of two paid equipment managers and 12 volunteer students to stack and pack bags of cleats, helmets, snacks and jerseys.
“We have whatever we can possibly need for each player and a spare for everything,” said Kevin Nerl, assistant director of equipment for Ohio State.
The equipment team can’t leave anything to chance. Every possible weather outcome is planned for, not just for the players but for the coaches as well.
“These two red cases are full of rain suits for every staff member. We have bags of waterproof shoes for the staff,” saod Nerl.
Even the game balls the Buckeyes use are made specially for each quarterback.
“We use leather conditioners, we use mud. We have a guy from Columbus who does it for us. He works with the QB’s so they have the right color [and] the right softness,” said Nerl.
The Buckeyes travel equipment is loaded into a 53-foot long semitrailer.
Every player has two pair of shoes, different wrist bands and different shoulder pads. There is also a trunk of snacks that players feast on during half-time.
“The gushers and gummies are big for a lot guys. The applesauce is big for halftime. These guys burn a lot of calories,” said Nerl.
The players also chew a lot of bubble gum. Two 300-count tubs of gum travel with the team as well.
It’s not just cleats and jerseys that need to be loaded on the truck.
In the case of the Indiana game where temperatures are expected to be in the high 80s, the Buckeyes bring their own air conditioning in the form a massive fan for the locker room.
“We are binging fans to Indiana this week. It's going to be hot, we want to make sure we get air flow."
While the teams gets all the glory on the field, the teams professional backers toil in the shadows to ensure the team has everything in needs to get a victory on the field.
It takes precision and organizational awareness to get the job done.
And they’ll do it six times this year -- preparing the team to hit the road on a nearly 2,000 mile journey across the Big 10 Conference.