TAMPA, FL. – Saturdays in the fall are for college football.

USF Equipment staff is made up of roughly a dozen people

Equipment is packed up in the truck by Wednesday afternoon each week

Packing is a certainty because USF is “always on the road” having home games at Ray Jay

It’s for big plays, loud cheers, and memories that last a lifetime.

But there is another aspect to the sport. It’s the part you never see: the equipment staff preparing for a game.

The USF Bulls have an equipment staff of 13-14 people, made up of student managers, graduate assistants, and a full-time staff. Their weekly routine stays the same because their team travels for each game.

“We’re always on the road, technically, because we play at Raymond James,” said Jeremy Lees, who is the Assistant Athletics Director for Equipment Operations. Lees has been at USF since 2002.

His work begins during the previous winter when the football schedule comes out.

“We are thinking about logistics that far in advance,” said Lees. “Not just a week out, but several months out.”

“I think it’s one of those things, equipment to everybody else is ‘oh you do some laundry and you work a little’ but when they realize that you’re working endless hours and you’re managing practice,” said Jason Tackett, the assistant equipment manager.

The work for each week begins Sunday with a game plan that goes far beyond a uniform color.

“Are you playing on turf, are you playing on grass,” said Lees. “What is that grass like? Is it going to rain; is it going to snow; will it be hot or cold; all of these factors go into that.”

This particular week USF is preparing for its longest road trip of the season as the Bulls head up to Connecticut to play UConn.

“It’s actually pretty stressful because you don’t want to forget anything and you want to have everything covered,” said Scott McClung, a recent graduate of USF and equipment manager. “You think about a football uniform, there are a lot of pieces to that.”

We come out and pack the bags with the shoulder pads, the cleats, the pads and braces for the O-linemen,” said Eric Wright, one of USF’s graduate assistants for football. “And then we go ahead and pack all that up and we load it on the truck.”

Not only did we chronicle the process for a Wednesday packing, but we also traveled with USF’s equipment truck all the way to UConn. The truck left the USF campus in Tampa at 4am the morning of October 3rd. What followed was a 26 and a half hour journey through ten states.

USF has two drivers who made the trip. One sleeps in the bunk bed structure in the front of the semi. The other drives for their shift. We made a stop per state, including mandatory breaks for both drivers. The drivers also had to help unload and load up the truck at Rentschler field in East Hartford, CT. Right after the game at UConn, the two get back in the truck and drive back for a Sunday arrival in Tampa