Mountain West road teams are struggling — and Fresno State has 6-hour bus ride this week

For Fresno State, every road trip starts with a bus ride. Usually, a short one. From campus to the Fresno Yosemite International Airport it’s only seven or eight miles, 15 or 20 minutes, and the Bulldogs go from bus to charter flight and on to wherever.

But on Thursday they will do it differently, as some college football teams in the country are during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fresno State will bus to and from its first road game, Saturday at UNLV. That’s 400 miles one way, about six hours. With an early afternoon kickoff, they are leaving a day earlier than usual and the players, coaches and a limited number of staff will be spaced out in five buses to properly social distance.

The buses will be filled at 50% capacity, or less. Most trips, they would use three buses for a larger traveling party. “It’s definitely different,” an athletics department official said.

ROAD TEAMS NOT FEELING AT HOME

Will that make a difference on Saturday against UNLV?

Road teams in the Mountain West through the first two weeks haven’t had to deal with in-game distractions like crowd noise, since games have been played in front of no fans or a limited number of fans and there is a conference-set limit to the decibel level of piped-in crowd noise.

But there are differences in the way teams are traveling, and challenges, and MW teams playing away from the comforts of home are 4-7, a .364 winning percentage.

A year ago, road teams in conference play were 22-26, a .458 winning percentage. In 2018, it was 24-24 (.500). In 2017, it was 23-25 (.479). In 2016, it was 19-29 (.396). So, two weeks into the season, and for whatever reasons, the road has been more difficult than in recent years.

The good part, at least for an athletics department that has been hit hard by COVID-19, even with the extra night in a hotel in Las Vegas it will save between $35,000 and $40,000 on the trip by not taking a charter flight.

But there will be some adjustment for the Bulldogs, who also will have a 12:30 p.m. kickoff for the first time since beating Arizona State in the 2018 Las Vegas Bowl. Saturday’s game is at Allegiant Stadium, new home of the Las Vegas Raiders and UNLV.

Rooming lists, meals, meeting space all will be different – the meals and meeting space to accommodate social distancing easier to secure in Las Vegas than perhaps on future road trips to Utah State, Nevada and New Mexico.

The meals will not be buffet-style in a dining room, but grab and go, and the Bulldogs will likely eat in their rooms, put on their face masks and then head off to position and team meetings.

IT’S A GAME OF ADJUSTMENTS

The Bulldogs played at home the first two weeks of the season, losing to Hawaii 34-19 and beating Colorado State 38-17.

Their team meals before each game were eaten outside.

“Outside with guys sitting as far away at a table as they can – a big, long table, two guys per table, facing the same direction,” coach Kalen DeBoer said.

“We’ve been doing it outside. We do our special teams meetings outside. We bring a big projector and show that up on a video screen. It’s a unique environment. Our guys have adjusted, and that’s a lot of what we’ll continue to do when we’re on the road, as well.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 12:03 PM.