On the road with the Gophers football: From liftoff to kickoff

Mitch Leidner is in 19-A, a stocking cap pulled low and his head pressed against the window shade. David Cobb is behind him, in 20-C, resting his eyes. The Gophers offensive linemen are up front, where they can stretch their big bodies in first class.

The shades are pulled, with players trying to catch a quick nap. It's Friday at 1:30 p.m., less than 22 hours from kickoff. Fans used to seeing high-flying football games wouldn't believe how quiet these players are in-flight.

At 10,000 feet, the pilot's even-toned voice comes over the intercom, breaking the silence. He tells them they're ahead of schedule, gives a quick weather update and wishes them well against Illinois.

This isn't the time for pep talks. Nobody in the main cabin says a word.

"It's a business trip," senior associate athletic director Dan O'Brien says.

An inside look at the program's airtight approach to team travel reveals as much. The 60 minutes the Gophers spend on visiting sidelines can produce wildly varying results — a four-point loss this trip, a 16-point victory the one prior — but their Fridays and Saturday mornings follow what could be a script for a special-ops mission.

The staff moves with the speed and precision of a military unit, taking over a hotel, converting meeting rooms into film theaters and party lounges into training rooms. Every minute is considered, from the team meals to bed check, from the Saturday morning walk-through in the hotel parking lot to coach Jerry Kill's pregame speech. Kickoff is the crescendo.

Minutes before the game, after days and hours of patience and preparation, the locker room is coursing with electricity. The tension bolts from the players as they march down the tunnel, chanting, "Mooooove, get out the way! Get out the way! GET OUT THE WAY!"

Breakfast is ready. Players trickle into the Hall of Fame Room at Minnesota's Gibson/Nagurski Football Complex wearing a lanyard around their neck, a small square itinerary hanging down. The laminated card shows their seat assignment for the plane, the hotel information and a minute-by-minute look at their next two days.

Of the team's 124 players, only 70 can travel. The coaches post the list in the locker room during Thursday's practice. Players arrive Friday morning, with their enormous appetites and find a breakfast buffet waiting for them.

All their menus are color-coded by team nutritionist Brittany Francis. She labels the healthy choices — omelets, fruit — in green. The bacon gets marked in high-fat red.

Next to the buffet, Francis has set up a vitamin stand. It looks like the selection of nails and screws at the local hardware store, only here each player has a little plastic drawer with his name marked on it, and all the vitamins he'll need for the day.

The semitrailer hauling the team's equipment left Thursday morning, with Paul Luxem behind the wheel, just as he has been for the past 28 years.

Everyone else is eager to leave soon, too.

Kill makes the rounds during the meetings and returns to his office on high alert. A player is missing. Did Jerry Gibson check in for breakfast? The answer is yes. Gibson, a true freshman making his first road trip, simply stopped by the wrong meeting room. Moments later, he's in the right spot.

After a walk-through and light practice, the players return to their lockers to find a little gift from Rebecca Kill. Each week, the coach's wife bakes cookies and places two in each locker, along with a small piece of paper with a quote inside a plastic bag. This week's saying is from Vince Lombardi and includes a passage befitting this meticulous program: "You don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time."

She signs each one in pen: "Love ya, Mom Kill."

In the time it might take a fan to drive to the airport, check luggage and go through security, the Gophers will have reached their destination. Door to door — from the football complex to their hotel — this trip will take 2 ½ hours. Champaign is such a remote location, surrounded by farmland, 140 miles south of Chicago, it's hard to imagine the team teleporting there any faster.

Led by a police escort, the buses zip down Interstate 35W and head straight for the Sun Country hangar, where a blue and orange 737 is parked on the tarmac. The flight is catered with sandwiches, macaroni and cheese and pasta salad from J.D. Hoyt's.

The Gophers try to fly on Fridays about 1 p.m., regardless of the Saturday kickoff time and regardless how far they are from their destination. It helps keep their Friday schedule consistent.

This plane dives beneath the clouds, over the squares of farmland and onto the tarmac of Willard Airport, where four buses await for the short ride to the hotel.

Punter Peter Mortell and kicker Andrew Harte have a score to settle as soon as they step into Room 203 at the Hawthorn Suites: "Who's the FIFA King?"

After getting to the hotel, the players get about three hours to themselves — by far their biggest chunk of free time on the trip. It doesn't matter that Mortell and Harte are about half the size of Williams and Goodger. The trash talk is intense.

"Maxx Williams is garbage," Harte says.

"Didn't you just get skunked 3-0?" Williams says.

While players unwind, the support staff barrels down the hotel hallways with equipment, quickly converting the team's new headquarters. Within minutes, there's a training room, where players can treat an injury or get an IV if they get sick.

Matt Schilling, the director of video services, takes over the hotel's five meeting rooms, setting up a laptop with a projector and screen in each one. He first worked under Kill at Southern Illinois, 14 years ago.

Now, just about any play a coach wants to see is easily found and sorted with a few clicks.

Every summer weekend, there's a wedding reception in the hotel banquet room. But tonight, that area is set up for the Gophers' team dinner.

Kill is wearing his sport coat, but the players and assistant coaches are dressed casual. Sweatsuits are welcome. The players sit by positions, but the seniors get the first crack at the spread.

All details are mapped out for the hotel staff in the team's 20-page travel manual. This meal is the same every week — home and road — with London broil, grilled chicken, roast turkey and fettuccine with marinara. Even the salad dressings and desserts are the same.

Each week, Kill invites someone to give a 10-minute motivational speech. He has brought in former NFL players and CEOs. Tonight, it's Mike McElroy, a Gophers graduate assistant. He tells stories of inspirational figures, including Louis Zamperini, the former POW featured in Laura Hillenbrand's book "Unbroken."

Kill stands up and adds a few words.

"Just remember, when you come in tomorrow morning, come in prepared," he says. "Because when we're in the right mind-set, and we come in prepared, we've been undefeated."

Defensive line coach Jeff Phelps gathers his troops and calmly shows about 30 Illinois game clips. He reviews their assignments and uses a red laser pointer to show some sack opportunities that previous opponents have exploited against Illinois.

Botticelli, a senior defensive tackle, carries the focus of someone who could run this same meeting himself. No detail is too small.

"The casual observer might think these meetings have all these speeches, like, 'We're going to be rough and tumble,' and all that," Botticelli says. "It's 'Do you have the B-gap on the man-zone protection in third-and-long?'

The itinerary says it's snack time, and players can find burgers, grilled chicken, veggies and fruit in the banquet room.

With the 10 p.m. curfew approaching, there's a window here for players to catch up with family members who've made the trip. Sophomore linebacker Jack Lynn, who's from Lake Zurich, Ill., has some big hugs for his two parents, and his 87-year-old grandmother, Betty Lynn.

"This is the first time he's gotten to see her since December," Lynn's mother, Sandy, says. "We kidnapped her from the nursing home to come see him."

To make sure the players are in their rooms, with no visitors, two members of the Gophers support staff walk the hallways conducting bed checks. Jeff Jones, the director of player personnel, and operations assistant Mike Valesano comb the hallways, each knocking on one door at a time.

"What's up, dudes, you all good?" Jones says into David Cobb and Donnell Kirkwood's room. "Get some rest. See you all in the morning."

"Before I let Gary go to sleep, I give him a quiz," Botticelli says. "We get a handout of the game plan, and each week, I quiz him in the hotel to make sure he's got it all down."

Flat as a football field, the central Illinois landscape is gleaming from just a sliver of sun. This gameday morning presents perfect football weather.

Alarms have gone off in the dark, as college sports are for early risers. Workout sessions start even earlier than this throughout the year.

The players head for a hotel lobby, wearing their gray sweatsuits, and maroon team-issued backpacks. It's quiet again, much like the plane. Nobody laughs. Nobody really even smiles.

At 7, coaches lead them across the street from the hotel, into three parking lots that surround a small commercial office building. In the few trees at the edges of the vast pavement there are birds chirping at the morning's first light.

The defense is in another parking lot, with some players wearing blue and green shower caps, lined up as opposing ball carriers.

"At that point, it's all review," Botticelli says. "By the time Friday and Saturday rolls around, there's no room for mental errors, or forgetting, or being unclear or hesitant."

After a quick team breakfast at the hotel, the Gophers get another police escort to Memorial Stadium. It's a five-minute bus ride, up Kirby Avenue, around the tailgate lots and into the tunnel near the locker room.

An ESPN cameraman is filming as Kill steps off the bus, and that clip gets shown on "College GameDay," previewing the telecast on ESPNU.

Inside the locker room, the tension slowly builds as players get their ankles and wrists taped.

Head equipment manager Kyle Gergely and his equipment staff have set up their supplies in well-organized drawers, outside the main locker area. Isaac Fruechte comes and has some work done on his cleats. Donnell Kirkwood gets some new wrist bands. Wilson grabs a skull cap. Berkley Edwards asks for some biceps bands.

Zac Epping, a senior lineman who's about to make his 42nd consecutive start, stops by with a hole in his shoe.

"Get some duct tape," Epping deadpans.

Cobb, Botticelli and other players grab eye black stickers. Maxx Williams prefers the real thing. He finds a mirror and begins applying a ChapStick-like tube of eye black on his cheeks. Before long, his fingers are covered in the grease, and so is his face.

Several players need help getting their jerseys over their shoulder pads, as the modern uniforms are practically skin tight. Gergely's assistant, Andy Harris, helps Lynn contort his head and arms through the shoulder pads, with the jerseys already attached.

Exiting the locker room, several players sing hip-hop songs to help cut the tension. They are bouncing around, each eager to break his leash, and kickoff is still 47 minutes away.

They bolt past the Illinois marching band, reach the field and hear Chris Brown's song "Loyal" blaring through the stadium sound system. Sophomore cornerback Jalen Myrick and others dance to the beat as warmups begin.

At 10:36, the Gophers clear the field and return to the locker room. An athletic trainer yells, "Don't forget to hydrate!"

After seeing the sun angle, backup quarterback Chris Streveler wants some eye black, but Williams has pretty much emptied one stick applying his war paint. In mock disgust, Streveler says he'll take some, "if there's any left."

The visitor's locker room is much smaller than the Gophers have at home, so when Kill goes to give his speech, he can't even see the players all at once. But sitting in their locker bays, they can definitely hear him. He starts from the top.

"Yes, sir," come 70 voices at once.

"On the offensive side of the ball, take care of the football. Don't turn it over — win. It's that simple."

But his main reminder is to have fun.

"And the best way to have fun is get after their tail end," he says. "You've got to match their intensity, and you've got to show them what it's like to play the Gophers."

The players start to hoot and holler, pushing toward the locker-room door. They march down the ramp, four to a row, singing in unison. "GET OUT THE WAY!"

The last line on the Gophers' laminated itineraries says, "11:01 a.m. KAWC." That's short for kick ass with class — a motto Kill's staff has used for years.

After standing in a straight line for the anthem, with hands over their hearts, they assemble for kickoff. The months of planning, the 500 miles of travel, the aound-the-clock work of 150-plus people — it all comes to an end, just as it all begins.

Ryan Santoso, who was seated across the aisle from Leidner on the plane just 22 hours ago, raises his hand. The referee gives him the OK. A team that hasn't missed a beat this whole trip is ready to see what happens once that unpredictable oblong ball leaves Santoso's right foot.

Joe Christensen • jchristensen@startribune.com

Elizabeth Flores • eflores@startribune.com