Air Force faced hurdles just getting to Shreveport

Coordinating travel over the holiday season can be a pain. Flying to a remote location makes figuring out those trips even worse.

Multiply that angst by about 140, and you’ll know what Air Force chief of football operations Jeff Cosky went through the past few weeks. He coordinated getting 116 players, 17 managers and five video managers from all regions of the country to Shreveport, La., for the first Independence Bowl practice Wednesday afternoon.  

“It’s a scary process,” Cosky said. “It makes me gray.”

The travel arrangements began shortly after Air Force accepted the Independence Bowl bid. Cosky e-mailed all the players a worksheet, asking where they were flying after the last practice at the academy Dec. 15, and where they were flying to after the bowl game. For players with split families, the destinations might differ.

Once he got the answers, he spent three days, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., putting together a massive spreadsheet. That was sent to the travel agent at the academy, who started buying tickets.

Almost every other team charters a plane to its bowl game. Georgia Tech, Air Force’s opponent, will charter from Atlanta and back. The Falcons would have chartered a plane, as they do for most road games, had they played in the Las Vegas Bowl on Wednesday. But military leave got in the way. With the dorms closed down and no bowl practices until Wednesday, players had to leave the academy.

“That’s where we’re a little different,” Cosky said about the military leave.

Another issue was Shreveport, which among bowl sites is one of the most remote for travel purposes. Shreveport has a small regional airport – much smaller than Colorado Springs’ airport, Cosky said – so there aren’t an abundance of incoming flights. The players will come in from one of three hubs - Dallas, Houston or Atlanta - and some have three flight segments on the way to Shreveport. Traveling to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the Armed Forces Bowl the past three years was easier.

The time of year wasn’t ideal either.

“Traveling over the holidays, you were kind of limited what seats were available,” Cosky said.

The players are government travelers on military leave, so Air Force is responsible to pay the amount of a flight from Colorado Springs to Shreveport and back, which was about $940. Anything more is the player’s responsibility.

Cosky figures almost all of them will arrive well before the start of the midafternoon practice and take the shuttle to the hotel or straight to practice, depending when they get in, but that doesn’t count those who are delayed. Cosky figures he’ll be up before 5 a.m., because that’s when he’ll start getting calls from players informing him they’ve been delayed, by weather or other issues.

“I’m worried I’ll get a call from an Ohio kid or a Chicago kid that says, ‘We got snow,’” Cosky said.

Cosky and the rest of the support staff will have some nervous moments today, but Falcons coach Troy Calhoun praised them for the efforts getting the team to the bowl site.

“It’s not going to be flawless, because almost all of our guys are involved in a connection,” Calhoun said. “But we’ll do it the best we can. Those guys have done a super, super job.”