How Utah Football Takes It's Show on the Road

SALT LAKE CITY – In Adam Fry's office inside the Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center, there's a sign above his desk that says Chaos Coordinator. A California native and former all-state pole vaulter who's been with the program since 2013, Fry is in his fourth season as the program's Director of Operations, which, if you ask him, means he's responsible for "D. all of the above. Making the ship go in the direction the coach wants it to go."

One of those responsibilities involves working with long list of other people within the program to make sure all the necessary preparations have been made every time the Utes hit road for a game away from home. Whether its booking flights and hotel rooms, making sure the team gets fed, getting all the necessary equipment is on sight or making sure the return to Salt Lake City is a smooth one, Fry and staff members from every department are the ones who work behind the scenes with the coaching staff to get the Utes ready to play when they're not in Salt Lake City. Said Fry: "It is making sure that what coach envisions for how the program should run, runs and runs smoothly."

The first step in this process begins long before kickoff. As soon as the schedule for the season becomes official, Fry and his assistants immediately go looking for hotels that can house and feed a travel party that numbers well in excess of 150 people. The Utes also need a place that can provide more than just a clean bed.

"Once we know what that schedule is," said Fry, "within the next 60 days, we're gathering what hotels are available in the area. We review what looks good, what doesn't look good, does it look like a property we might be interested in and then [assistant director of operations] Mike [Corbett] or I will go do a site visit. We will look at two or three properties; which one flows the best for what we do as a team, walk through space, meeting space, meal room size, load in/load out, is that easy or is it complicated? All those factors are how we pick a hotel."

One of the other factors is making sure the hotel can feed a group as large as the one Utah takes on the road.

"In the hotel world," said Fry, "has the hotel dealt with large groups before? Do they know how to feed 80-120 people? If they are, then it is educating their staff and their chef that our guys eat one-and-a-third of what normal people eat. If you are accounting for 100 people, you are really cooking for 130."

That is also where the football nutrition department comes in, headed up by Director of Football Nutrition Kelsey Smith. In addition to making sure the hotel staff knows how much food to cook, Smith and her staff try to make there's a balance between food the players and coaches will like and what will help the team fuel up for the game.

"That is the whole name of the game," said Smith, "We like for our players to know the structure of what to expect on arrival dinner, that way they know we have their safe foods that they digest easily and will not negatively impact their performance. Our arrival dinner, our pre-game meal, those are pretty set. Especially our pre-game meal, we don't make any changes to that. That is something that the guys know exactly what fuels their body."

There is also one specific item that usually makes its way onto the menu for the arrival dinner, with a certain individual in mind.

"Every time we make a decision," said Smith, "we do have [Coach Whittingham's] taste preferences in mind. For example, we have clam chowder at every single arrival dinner. It doesn't matter where we are, we will always have clam chowder."

There is also a balance Smith and her staff try to strike pregame to try and find a meal that will check multiple boxes for the student-athletes.

"Pregame," said Smith, "we order the buffet in this order: we want them to have predominantly easy to digest carbohydrates. Things like potatoes, white pasta, we'll even have waffles, white rice; we put that on the line first so they fill the majority of their plates with those carbohydrates. Then it goes to protein. They are going to be out there quite a while so you want them to have a little bit but not using that protein as energy; it is more to help them feel more satisfied. Then we have vegetables at the very end. A well-rounded meal."

As game week approaches and elements like kick-off time become official, the process of setting the schedule and itinerary for the week begins and the first group to weigh in is the team's sports performance department and their scheduling suggestions then arrive on the desk of head coach Kyle Whittingham.

"We have an outline of how we operate," said Fry. "If it is an early kick, mid-day kick, late kick; we kind of put together a shell. Sports performance, their role is how we are doing it, is that the best for success for the body to perform? I see what they think. Then we put the recommendations, give to Coach and he says what he likes and what he doesn't like and we build out the itinerary from there. Once we have an itinerary set, it is everything from hotels, to ground transportation, to air transportation; getting everybody there on schedule."

On the equipment side, the process of preparing for one game starts soon after the previous week's game ends for Assistant AD for Equipment Operations Kelly Sharitt and Director of Football Equipment Bo Bates.

"The process starts as soon as we get home from whatever the game was before," said Bates. "As soon as the [equipment] truck gets back on that that Sunday, that's when we start getting all the trunks packed and all the gear reset for the new week. And it takes every single day all the way up to leading to that next game day."

There's a long list of variables for Bates and his staff that factor into what will be making the trip with the team, including distance, field type and locker room size. The first decision of the week, however, gets made with the input of a very select group.

"I'll talk with the captains," said Bates, "and the captains will tell me what uniforms they want to rock. Usually [on the road], we'll always be in the white jersey, whether it's our UU or Drum and Feather stripe. Then they'll tell us what helmet and pants they want to be in."

One of the other major elements that plays a role in what will be arriving with the Utes is weather and both Bates and Fry are always staying in tune with the forecast.

"We look at weather as we get closer to a game," said Fry. "At Oklahoma State, we knew we had to take cooling benches and we had to take cooling fans. How do we get it down there? Do we rent it or do we take our own? All of those factors, that is where Kelly's staff or Bo's staff, they are the ones that map that out. They know what they need and find a way to get it there."
 
"We have all the items we need," said Bates, "whether it's our sun shades, which are the pop-up canopies that go over the players that sit on the benches, or our fans. We'll bring them anytime it's a hot or humid place. If it's cold, we have our sun burners and they give off radiant heat. We'll bring rain jackets for the staff or parkas if its super cold. Our truck likes to leave a few days early so they can get there in plenty of time. Sometimes the forecast will change in between those two or three days, so we'll just plan accordingly by taking both."
 
In addition to items to help the Utes stay ready for whatever mother nature has in store, Utah's equipment truck is stocked with any and every item the team needs to function.
 
"Everything goes," said Bates. "Anything from helmets, shoulder pads, cleats, braces, pants, jerseys, coaches wear, footballs, bikes, lots of water, Gatorade. We take all of our training supplies, so anything from our Gatorade boats to our athletic tape, our X system, which is our communication system on the sideline. We bring gear just in case we have to make changes and alterations. Pretty much everything you can possibly think of that goes into a football program gets condensed into our semi-truck to head to the game."
 
Gamedays on the road for Fry and his staff are all about timing. Whether its meetings, meals, departure or arrival, it's all mapped out prior to get the team to the stadium with plenty of time to spare before kickoff. "Once we depart [the hotel], we are within the minute," said Fry. "If I am outside of two minutes, I've missed the mark somewhere. Departure from the hotel, I'm allowing 12 minutes to get to the stadium. I want to be in the locker room 2 hours and 10 minutes prior. That gives the guys 45-ish minutes to settle in before a lot of the pre-game warm-up starts."
 
One of the earliest pieces of the puzzle for that timeline is Bates and his cast of many arriving on site to begin preparing the locker room and the sideline for the team's arrival. Getting to stadium between six to eight hours prior kickoff, the equipment staff immediately goes to work, putting all the elements in place Utah's ingress.
 
"I have a really, really good crew," said Bates "There are about four full-time guys. We bring our coach-com guy that runs all our headsets and we also have eight full-time student managers who travel with us. All eight are my captains. I'll have a shoulder pad captain, a cleat captain or footwear captain, jersey captains or sideline captains and all of them have specific duties. As soon as we get to the stadium, they'll get those duties done they've been trained for."
 
Once the game concludes, there's no shortage of work still left to be done. Fry and his colleagues are on top of making sure the buses are loaded and the charter flights are fueled and ready. Smith and her staff make sure there are drinks like cherry juice and food to help the players recover. "The meal after a game usually checks a lot of boxes," said Smith, "like protein for recovery, carbohydrates for replenishing all of the energy they just burned off, some color to help fight the inflammation." Bates and his crew start packing the truck for trip back to Salt Lake City. "As soon as the game is done, we take everything we brought that the team used and put it back into our semi-truck."
 
Once the team arrives back home, it isn't long until the work begins again. "As soon as we get back," said Bates, "we'll probably be here for a few hours working on [laundry] and when that's done, we'll go home. As soon as we get back in, that [starts] the process for the next game."
 
All of the effort that goes on behind the scenes from people like Fry, Smith, Bates and many others is what enables the Utes to show up ready for football whenever they're not at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Once the hotel rooms have been booked, the arrival and pre-game meals have been prepared and each locker has been filled with a jersey, helmet and cleats is when Utah is ready to play. Friday will be the sixth time in 2024 all this work has been done to try and make Whittingham's team feel like they're at home when they're away from home and it won't be long until operations, nutrition and equipment are back at work beginning preparations for all the road trips Utah has on the schedule for 2025.