Bigger airplanes, revamped schedules and puffed up spending plans: Inside the changes

Andrea Adelson, ESPN

• Elder WriterJul 23, 2024, 07:00 AM ET Close ACC
• press reporter. Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
• Graduate of the University of Florida.STANFORD COACH TROY TAYLOR was

at breakfast at the group hotel in Hawai’i, hours before the kickoff to the 2023 season, when he learned the ACC had officially voted to accept the Cardinal, Cal and SMU as new league members.Though Stanford had a game to play that night, Taylor’s mind raced ahead to the new reality they suddenly had to challenge. Chief amongst his thoughts: lengthy journey to the East Coast. Taylor turned to senior associate athletic director Matt Doyle, their longtime football operations director, and said,”Well, I think our trip to Australia is off.”At that point, Stanford was deep in conversations to open the 2025 season in Australia. But given the comprehensive travel that would be required of them as ACC members, it no longer made good sense to play games in other nations. New strategies were crafted nearly right away at all three schools. They had roughly 11 months to get ready for a brand-new world.For Cal and Stanford, that implied a lot more from a logistical viewpoint given their almost 3,000-mile distance from league headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, where all 3 schools will be included at ACC Kickoff this week.Think Google Maps to compute the best path for equipment trucks to drive from Palo Alto, California, to Syracuse, New York. Believe charter flight costs, consulting sleep specialists, reviewing how

and when to leave for journeys, scouting new groups and trying to minimize missed class time.”It’s been a whirlwind,”stated Josh Hummel, Cal senior associate athletic director for centers, occasions and capital jobs. “There’s not really a precise science to it. I do not believe there’s a playbook that states, ‘Here’s what you do when switching conferences.'” Jacob Snow/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images LUCKILY FOR CAL and Stanford, a few California-based schools had actually already started solving this particular logistical puzzle– UCLA and USC announced relocations several time zones away to the Huge 10 in 2022. Hummel stated Cal had conversations with UCLA, especially about travel.Monthly calls in between Cal and Stanford were soon set up so they could exchange ideas, too. Both schools chose they would leave for their long-distance roadway games on Thursdays, one day earlier than usual. Both schools are taking bigger planes for their trips, not just for the comfort level of their players, however for the cargo area. Cal, for example, signed a charter deal with Delta and will utilize 767-300 airplanes for travel this year, with a minimum of 210 seats. The lone exception begins the trip to Florida State. Since Tallahassee has a small local airport, Cal has to use a slightly smaller 757 plane.Both the Cal and Stanford devices trucks will now leave their respective campuses on Mondays for a Saturday kickoff to be able to make the cross-country trek with sufficient time to establish the sideline and locker room. Two chauffeurs will take turns driving– 10 hours on, 10 hours off.The long return trip home suggests the trucks will not return to California till Tuesday or Wednesday. So game gear– consisting of uniforms, coach and personnel laundry, will have to be packed on the plane to be cleaned up and all set for the following week. Stationary bicycle, coolers, some medical devices, rain equipment and cooling fans stay on the trucks.Stanford wound up with back-to-back ACC journey to the East Coast this year

, beginning at Syracuse on Friday, Sept. 20. Eight days later, the Cardinal play at Clemson. Stanford chose the group would fly home following the Syracuse game for several reasons. Initially, they have an additional day to recover between games. Second, the fall semester at Stanford starts Monday, Sept. 23, and it would have been difficult for players to miss the entire very first

week of school. The team will fly out Thursday for the Clemson game.But the devices truck will remain East for the duration. Stanford equipment managers will pack up the truck immediately after the Syracuse game, then fly home with the group. Its contracted drivers will then drive the truck to a satellite storage lawn in Virginia, until it is time to head to Clemson.Both schools each have 3 ACC games in the Eastern Time Zone, plus additional nonconference games in the Central Time Zone (Stanford at Notre Dame; Cal at Auburn, plus a conference game at SMU

). Agents from Cal and Stanford did site sees months ago to take a look at their brand-new road stadiums from an operations perspective and choose team hotels.In all, the schools will integrate to take a trip more than 44,000 miles this season. Given all the included travel, Doyle approximates Stanford’s charter budget has doubled. It will be even higher in

2025 with an extra charter flight: The Cardinal have games at Hawaii, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia and SMU. Doyle said that next season, Stanford will need to cover the third-longest distance of any college football season ever.Still, both California-based coaches said they have approached the additional travel with a bit of a shrug. In their minds, the most significant differences in their

plans are leaving a day early, flying on larger planes and emphasizing the requirement to stay hydrated on the long flights to and from campus. Otherwise, the football preparation remains the same.” I don’t see it as being a problem, “Taylor stated.”Clearly, it’s a newer thing in terms of going [to the East Coast] three times in a season, but it’s been done before. NFL teams do it, so we’re not the very first to broach this. I feel great that we’ll be

able to adapt and carry out.””If you were in our building on a daily basis, you would’ve thought we’ve been in the ACC for the last 10 years in terms of how we run, “Cal’s Justin Wilcox said.”It’s not this seismic shift in how we go about our everyday business.” The ACC logo is painted onto the field at Cal Memorial Arena for the very first time. Jaden Yenjai, Cal Football INDEED, THIS ALL remains an operate in progress. Cal and Stanford, in need of a lifeline after the Pac-12 disintegrated last summertime, had started planning for the possibility of a conference switch

after realignment shook the Pac-12 in 2022. There had been preliminary hesitation from ACC presidents about broadening to the West Coast, and it took a turned vote from NC State last summer season to get growth across the surface line.The transfer to add those two programs, along with SMU, was seen as

a method to support the conference progressing, an idea that was additional taken shape after Florida State and

Clemson submitted match against the league, challenging its grant of rights and withdrawal penalties.While those lawsuits are pending, the ACC is moving on as a 17-member football conference– growing its television markets from the East Coast to the West Coast and into Dallas. Though there remain questions about its composition long term, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips stays bullish about its future.” The addition of these 3 schools is only doubling down about where

the ACC has been in the past, “Phillips said.” This is as good of a league as there is in the nation. “Phillips has done his part to attempt and mitigate any concerns presidents, administrators and players might have had about the included travel. Quickly after growth was authorized last summer, Phillips went to all 3 campuses and met with key stakeholders to lay out ACC governance structure, financials and the way the league runs its sport championships.The work of putting together schedules began nearly right away later, and the ACC focused on limiting cross-country travel as much as possible. In sports outside football, the scheduling design was made particularly to include multiple games in the exact same area over a 3 -or four-day period. For example, Stanford women’s soccer is scheduled to play Wake Forest and NC State on one journey in

September.Cal running back Jaydn Ott says he is not interested in the extra travel for the football program. He believes the transfer to the ACC will assist bring more nationwide attention to the Bears program– especially when they have an opportunity to open conference play at Florida State in September.”It’s a huge step up originating from the Pac-12, “Ott stated.” There are not too many people viewing Pac-12 football in the Midwest and on the East Coast. So I think joining the ACC gives us more presence to people, and playing these different groups, we’ll lastly have the ability to prove to individuals that we can compare with some of the very best out there.”There is another crucial logistical distinction with the conference relocation: travel roster size. The Pac-12 travel roster size for conference games was capped at 74, and unlimited for nonconference games.

In the ACC, the travel roster size is 80 for both conference and nonconference games. So now, for instance, Stanford will have to make choices about who to bring to Notre Dame, something it has actually not had to stress over in the past. The Stanford-Cal game could likewise potentially be affected. Doyle stated they had been allowed to have the entire lineup on the sideline for their yearly rivalry game, and prepares to ask the ACC if that will be enabled to continue.Travel impacts go beyond larger planes and scrambled body clocks. Included travel also indicates more missed class time. Stanford set up a faculty job force to go over options to ensure as little disruption as possible. Both schools have the ability for remote class work and have actually discussed travel impacts with faculty. Hummel stated Cal prepares to be more proactive in taking time on each trip to ensure the meeting room in the team hotel is available for players to have a dedicated area for their academics. “We’re even more away. There are longer flights,”Wilcox said.”There’s no denying that, however at the end of the day, we don’t think it’s that big of a deal. We’re not talking about that after the game because we missed a deal with. That’s not showing up. This is not going to be a thing for us.”The combo you never understood you needed. #PonyUpDallas x @theACC pic.twitter.com/O0nB6L051Z-SMU Football(@SMUFB )July 1, 2024 SMU ATHLETIC DIRECTOR Rick Hart likes to joke SMU was in 3 conferences in his very first year on the job in 2012– ending up out its last season in Conference U.S.A. with a commitment to sign up with the Big East. However then the Big East broke down and developed into the American Athletic Conference, where the Mustangs began play in 2013. Unlike Cal and Stanford, members of the Pac-12 for more than 100 years, SMU has been looking for a go back to a power conference given that the Southwest Conference broke down in 1996. Though the ACC is the fourth conference SMU will call home since then, Hart says he believes this relocation has actually returned the program to the promised land.” A dream come to life, “he likes to say.”This is really the culmination of 37 years of financial investments and efforts and outcomes,”Hart said. “The enjoyment level is off the charts.” To that point, SMU has

raised a record $159 million since its revealed move to the ACC to assist not just fund programs on a Power 4 level, but help fund the athletic department

. In order to get approval into the ACC, SMU agreed to pass up ACC television earnings for its very first nine years in the league. “We quite see it as a financial investment,”Hart stated.”We didn’t really provide anything up relative to what we had or what we were going to have. We felt great that from a competitive perspective and a resource perspective