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A day ago, Hal Morrell never expected to be in a race against time.
But here it is.
It’s 2:30 p.m. ET Thursday, and he’s seated in the passenger seat of BYU’s giant equipment truck as he buzzes through Nebraska. To his left, behind the wheel, Fili Taufa, at the wheel of a large rig that carries precious cargo: helmets, pads, jerseys, crampons and footballs of the undefeated Cougars.
The two men are in the return leg of …
“Hang on! Can you hold on a sec,” Morrell said politely. “I have to take a picture of the Missouri River!”
The phone is silent except for the faint rustle of a large platform rolling on I-80.
“OK I’m back.”
Either way, the pair are on the second leg of a 40 hour, 2,200 mile cross country trip.
The Mission: Deliver these precious goods to Conway, SC, for Saturday’s impromptu game between BYU and Coastal Carolina.
Deadline: 3 p.m. ET on Friday.
The consequences of not meeting the deadline: The BYU team, which is expected to disembark in South Carolina on Friday afternoon, will not have any supplies.
The level of anxiety: high.
“There is no room for error,” says Billy Dixon, 31, a BYU equipment manager, who was back Tuesday afternoon in Provo, Utah, receiving regular updates from its two pilots. “It’s the narrowest window I have ever been in. They’re professional pilots, but that … that pushes them.
Among the bizarre events of a memorable – or not-so-memorable 2020 college football season, this one – the rushed marriage of BYU and Coastal Carolina – comes to the fore.
Within hours and three days of the game, the two programs agreed to play on Saturday after Liberty, Coastal’s former opponent, suffered an outbreak of COVID issues.
Instead of Liberty vs. Coastal, it will be the No.13 Cougars (9-0) against the No.18 Chanticleers (9-0). The deal was made around 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, but it was tentative in nature. In fact, Liberty officials were hoping they could still play from Wednesday night. However, the test results that returned on Thursday morning gave them no choice – they had to cancel.
In an intoxicating move, BYU began preparing for Coastal on Wednesday afternoon, even dispatching their equipment truck on Wednesday night. Hal and Fili are gone, jostling on the road and, to keep the negotiations a secret, having only learned one thing: head to the Carolinas (and oh, I hope there is a game when you get there. arrive).
Hal Morrell and Fili Taufa, in the background, make an almost two-day ride in the BYU equipment truck.
Courtesy of Hal Morrell
They did not stir up a stench. They are two happy married fathers with three children.
“We have to be there before the team plane arrives because we have to meet them at the airport to load the players’ bags into the truck and before that we have to get to the hotel first. to set up the hotel! ” said Hal, 64.
In the background, Fili, 56, is heard saying something. After all, he drives and there is no interview while driving.
“Yeah,” said Hal, “we’re pushing him a bit closer.”
But before you start Hal and Fili’s road trip, you need to know how and why this crazy Saturday adventure was hastily put together in the first place.
With ESPN College GameDay who should have come from Conway, Liberty and Coastal Carolina were all set for their showdown. And then COVID intervened. Sunday’s test results produced positive cases with the Flames. According to protocol, they retested on Wednesday and notified Coastal Carolina, who on Wednesday morning began to furiously pursue another opponent.
At the same time, ESPN College GameDay also pursued other venue options, including the route to Virginia Tech for the Hokies game against Clemson, says Drew Gallagher, GameDay coordinating producer.
Meanwhile in Provo, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe had canceled an opponent’s schedule to fill this weekend (which includes a potential unreported game with undefeated Cincinnati that was called off due to COVID concerns. of the Bearcats). But then, Wednesday morning, Holmoe received advice that Coastal might be available.
Later, an ESPN executive called him with two questions.
“Would you like to do that?” Can you do this? “
Anxious to play and without a real mark on their calendar, the Cougars were in the game. They agreed to play if Liberty’s final round of testing disqualified the Flames. The BYU team learned the news during a 3 p.m. team meeting on Wednesday. BYU coaches began to prepare for the Chanticleers, study film, work out a game plan, and work almost completely through the night.
“I joked earlier in the week, ‘They could call us on Friday and we’d be ready to play,'” a BYU administrator said. AND.
It almost happened. The last word fell Thursday morning: Liberty was off, BYU was on. Liberty athletic director Ian McCaw even phoned Holmoe to congratulate him. If the Flames couldn’t be in the game, he says, there’s no one else better.
At Conway, Coastal coach Jamey Chadwell and staff had actually prepared for both opponents simultaneously from Wednesday night before learning the official news around 8 a.m. Thursday.
For quick recognition, Chadwell and his assistants called staff from the two other Sun Belt schools that had faced the Cougars before this season: Texas State and Troy, the BYU teams beaten by a combined score of 100-21.
“They’re like, ‘Hey, good luck,’” Chadwell said in an interview Thursday.
“One of them said, ‘You know what you’re getting into?’ The other said, ‘Everything we’ve done, do the opposite.’ “
The Cougars opened as 10 point favorites. Despite this spread, the game is shaping up to be the most meaningful of a weak game weekend. BYU is trying to break into the College Football Playoff Committee’s Top 12 for a New Years Six Bowl shot. The Chanticleers are aiming for an undefeated mark. College game day will come from Brooks Stadium. The weather should be fine. And the 5:30 p.m. ET kickoff is scheduled for an ESPNU show.
The only thing missing, for now: the BYU equipment truck.
Don’t worry, he’s moving at a good pace. Hal and Fili are pros. By Thursday night, they should have already passed through Kansas City and St. Louis. They left Provo at 9:11 p.m. local time on Wednesday, which is about 24 hours later than they usually would leave on a trip to the East Coast (they’ve done this a lot of times before; in fact, they’ve done it together . for nine years).
The cabin they ride in is actually a rental from Bailey’s Moving and Storage in Provo. Hal once owned part of the business (he is now mostly retired) and Fili still serves as the driver for the business. These two have been driving BYU’s gear truck since 2011. BYU records the most miles of almost any college football team annually, Hal says, just behind Hawaii. He and Fili drove some 70 road games and traveled over 150,000 miles in the truck, his trailer painted with the blue and white BYU logos.
“It’s the closest thing I’ll ever see to being a rock star,” says Hal. “We will be driving on the freeway and people will honk and wave at us or they will run over us.”
This trip is the most unusual to date.
On takeoff, their GPS projected them to arrive in 34 hours around 8 a.m.ET Friday morning. But it’s not that simple, says Hal.
The truck will stop at least three times to refuel. This baby is not your Toyota Camry. The large platform tank holds approximately 200 gallons of fuel. It takes almost an hour to complete it.
They change drivers every 9 to 11 hours or so. Transport regulations allow a single driver to drive 11 hours in a 24 hour period with a 30 minute break. Taking everything into account, it’s a 40 hour trip. This puts them in Conway with no more than three hours to spare from their deadline.
But before putting that rig on the road Wednesday night, Dixon and a team of about 15 equipment volunteers had to pack the equipment trailer in record time. They didn’t learn of the Coastal deal until 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday. And even if it was only temporary, they wanted to put the truck on the road.
“We weren’t going to miss a game because our equipment wasn’t there,” said Holmoe.
And so they packed their bags. As the Cougars players and staff gathered to review a game plan, they got carried away. While the Cougars were training Wednesday night, they were packing their bags.
Hal and Fili couldn’t leave until the end of BYU’s nighttime practice. Why?
“They trained with their gaming headsets!” Said Hal laughing.
Eventually, after practice was over and everything was loaded into the trailer, Hal and Fili left. He picked her up and was about to walk away when an equipment manager came yelling at him.
What the hell does he want? We have to hit the road!
“Wait! Wait!” said the director. “You can’t go yet! We don’t have the game balls there!
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