ORLANDO, Fla. — Busses rolled up to the Hilton Orlando on Monday afternoon as Iowa State arrived in the Sunshine State for only the second time in school history to begin preparation for Saturday’s Camping World Bowl.

Matt Campbell’s oldest son, Rudy Campbell, was the first off the bus Monday, which was maybe fitting as Iowa State prepares to take on No. 15 Notre Dame. Campbell joked when asked about any possible connection to the famous Fighting Irish alum, who has a movie bearing his name.

“It is a good football name,” Campbell said. “Actually it’s [my wife] Erica’s grandfather’s name. We do have the movie so Rudy in some way thinks it’s about him.”

Everything else Monday was business as usual. The Cyclones used their off-day to travel and will begin practice at Camping World Stadium on Tuesday.

Team in good standing upon Orlando arrival

Teams around college football will be dealing with absences during bowl season for one reason or another, but Campbell doesn’t anticipate that being a factor.

The fourth-year Iowa State coach shot down message board rumors surrounding left tackle Julian Good-Jones and said the team appears to be in good standing as game week begins.

“Yeah, I’m not quite sure where those started. Julian is obviously with us and not suspended. Just continuing to do what Julian does. I don’t know where that came from,” Campbell said. “Yeah, that’s my expectation, [that he’ll play]. The only thing Julian has dealt with is he was dinged up a little bit in the Kansas State game and was limited a little bit the last couple weeks in practice. I expect him to be full-go.”

Might anything keep the senior offensive lineman out?

“As of right now,” Campbell said, “no.”

In fact, Campbell said he doesn’t anticipate any key contributors missing from action as was the case in the 2017 Liberty Bowl when Iowa State was without senior safeties Kamari Cotton-Moya and Evrett Edwards for a violation of team rules.

“No other surprises,” Campbell said of the bowl game roster. “All the other academic stuff will all be in here by Tuesday but we didn’t even have anybody in the warning system. It won’t be something like Memphis where there’s two guys out. I don’t assume that by any stretch of the imagination but I think by the end of Tuesday night all the grades have to be in and we’ll know everybody academically. But I don’t foresee that being an issue.”

Bowl week structure seen as positive

One potential added positive of the Camping World Bowl falling on Dec. 28 is that Iowa State will remain on its usual game-week schedule.

The Cyclones will avoid playing a mid- or late-week game in favor of the normal Saturday kickoff, something that could ultimately mean nothing but is still viewed positively. What it does mean is that Iowa State is following normal protocol. The team used Monday as its day to travel and will practice Tuesday through Friday like a normal game week.

“That’s been huge for us to be really honest with you,” Campbell said. “It’s great that today is a travel day, which is normally an off-day for us. We’ve been able to kind of stick to routine. Whether that’s good or bad, that certainly helps.”

A benefit of being the home team in this year’s Camping World Bowl is that the Cyclones will also practice at the stadium while the Fighting Irish will prepare for Saturday’s game at a nearby high school stadium.

From the usual week of preparation to a normal kickoff time, Iowa State likes the setup that awaits in the coming days before playing only its second game in the state of Florida and the first since taking on Florida State in 1975.

“It’s perfect as far as [the game] being on Saturday. For us it’ll be like an 11 o’clock game back home. I think it’s going to be good,” quarterback Brock Purdy said. “We’re going to have the sane routine of every single game week as far as Monday through Friday. It’s good we get to do it in the morning. Get up, get going, start our day off with what we need to do to prepare for the game.”

Month layoff leads to improved health

Iowa State dealt with a barrage of nagging injuries in the final month of the regular season, many of which went undisclosed publicly.

That may have been the biggest benefit of the last month. Players like safety Greg Eisworth, who dealt with a nagging shoulder injury for most of the season, and even Purdy, were able to rest their bodies. The Cyclones will be without tight end Dylan Soehner, who suffered a season-ending leg injury against Kansas State, but should otherwise be a full strength against the Fighting Irish.

“We’re drastically improved from where we were at the end of the football season. I won’t talk a lot about all those issues,” Campbell said of the team’s health. “Obviously Dylan Soehner will be out. Dylan had surgery right after our last football game. Other than that, a lot of guys who were dinged up or really limited are back to full strength, which has been good. We took two weeks off right after that last football game. That really helped our team.”