There’s nothing like waking up on Christmas morning in an 18-wheeler.
Ask Chase Brown, then a student equipment manager at Oklahoma, who once spent his Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the Sooners’ equipment semi outside a Love’s Travel Stop in Ranger, Texas.
OU was set to face Stanford in the Sun Bowl on New Year’s Eve in El Paso, and, on the way to the game, the crew got caught in a snowstorm. With Interstate 20 closed and no way for them to make it into New Mexico or find a hotel, they were stranded.
“We were stuck at a truck stop from 2 or 3 in the afternoon all the way till the next morning,” Brown said. “So I woke up on Christmas morning 2009 in the semi-truck. … That stuff, it obviously happens.”
Now Oklahoma’s associate director of athletics equipment, Brown is tasked with ensuring his crew is prepared to get everything the football team needs to its road-game destination each week. That is especially important this week as the No. 14 Sooners (8-2, 5-2 Big 12) make their longest regular season road trip (1,116 miles) outside of West Virginia since 2019 ahead of their matchup with BYU (5-5, 2-5) at 11 a.m. CT in Provo.
The trip is a unique one. Given the distance and kickoff time, 10:07 a.m. MT, making it the earliest known start time in OU history, the equipment truck departed Norman on Wednesday night. It couldn’t leave earlier as head coach Brent Venables’ team practices in shoulder pads on Wednesday evenings, so they had to wait to pack them.
Because of weather concerns on the way, which Brown and his staff track weeks in advance, the truck took the southern route through the Texas panhandle, New Mexico and Colorado.
“Specifically for the BYU game,” Brown said. “Since it's in Provo in November, and the early indications are that it's going to be low to mid 40s for the high, and there's a chance of precipitation, that means that we're taking several more trunks. I think about seven or eight extra trunks to be exact between the players, the coaches, and some of the nutrition staff and trainers, just in order to prepare for the cold weather.”
Another wrinkle included in the journey is Oklahoma faces TCU at 11 a.m. on Black Friday next week in Norman, giving its equipment staff a short week. And, given the distance, the crew won’t arrive back in Norman until late Sunday or early Monday, which sets up a challenge in getting everything prepared for the team’s matchup against the Horned Frogs with the Thanksgiving holiday falling the day before the game.
Selected for a six-day window as most Sooners games have been this season, the kickoff time wasn’t announced until last Saturday night.
“I mean, it would be nice to know (earlier),” Brown said. “But basically, what that’s going to impact is the following week. If we kicked off late on Saturday night, it's obvious you’ve got an 18-hour drive coming back, and we're on a short week since the TCU game is on a Friday. So everything's already moved up a day, the truck is gonna be getting back quite a bit later than it normally would.”
There’s more that goes into packing “Ole Red,” as Ron Stewart, the truck’s driver calls it, than the average OU football fan would think. The cab is a 2020 Freightliner, according to OU regents’ meeting minutes, bought for $53,210 from Premier Truck Group in Oklahoma City.
Brown’s staff begins prepping for the next road game immediately following the conclusion of the previous contest. If at home, they’ll toss in the laundry on Saturday nights and pack the truck up on Monday mornings. Large fans will be packed for warmer weather games and heaters will be brought for colder environments.
“The first thing we think about is what the weather is going to be and then obviously what uniforms we're going to wear,” Brown says. “Most of the time it’ll be the traditional whites, but there’s always that one game (where we’ll wear alternates).”
OU football equipment truck before departing for Utah on Nov. 15.
One challenge the staff endures each week is figuring out which players’ jerseys to pack. The Big 12 allows 70 players to travel and they don’t receive the travel roster until Thursdays. Nonconference road games are simpler as 75 players are allowed to travel.
The equipment managers don’t just begin prepping the week of games; their process starts when Oklahoma’s schedule is released, which this year occurred in January.
“The first couple of things we look at is where we’re playing late in the year,” Brown said. “Which has an opportunity to be a cold weather game, or some of the warmer weather games in the fall or early in the year. So we look at the weather, because that will impact how much stuff we're taking.”
After weeks of sifting through weather reports and maps, the truck pulled out of Norman a little after 7 p.m. Wednesday night.
While early indications were the trip could be a rough one due to distance, weather and the Rocky Mountains, “Ole Red” made it to LaVell Edwards Stadium safely around 3 p.m. Thursday.
They even stopped in Moab, Utah, to snap some photos of the unique scenery the new Big 12 trip provides before arriving, a stark difference from Brown’s holiday experience.
Hello from Moab, UT. pic.twitter.com/LyWgZeMwgE
— Ron Stewart (@RonCStewart1) November 16, 2023
