COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio State Buckeyes are on the road for the second time this season as they face Penn State Saturday at noon. But getting a team and coaches to an away game with everything they may need is a task in itself.
What You Need To Know
- It takes a lot of manpower and equipment to get the Buckeyes to an away game
- Kevin Ries has been the director of Ohio State’s football equipment for 11 years
- He says they continually tweak things to make it as efficient as possible
- All of the equipment, uniforms, coaches clothing and more is all loaded into a semi-trailer to drive to the away game ahead of the team
It’s a whole lot of bags and trunks to pack up for an entire football team and its staff to get on the road.
“It kind of looks a mess, but I would say it’s kind of organized in my mind at this point,” said Kevin Ries, the director of football equipment for Ohio State.
The Ohio State locker room ahead of an away game is filled with equipment (Spectrum News 1/Katie Kapusta)
And Ries is the one that makes it all happen. Ries has been the director of Ohio State’s football equipment for 11 years, so he’s pretty much got it down. But he says, they’re always making adjustments.
“I say we are continuously changing things where it’s to the point of how we’re moving bags this year is different than how we did it last year,” he said.
Kevin Ries walks out of the locker room to help load the trailer (Spectrum News 1/Katie Kapusta)
The sheer amount of stuff needed is remarkable.
“We truly have probably enough to make it through a season for one game,” Ries said.
It’s his job to make sure each player and coach has exactly what they might need.
Quarterback C.J Stroud’s locker (Spectrum News 1/Katie Kapusta)
“C.J. will probably have five pairs of cleats,” Ries said of star quarterback C.J. Stroud. “Majority of guys will probably have one to two.”
And Ries makes sure it’s all included.
“Everything you really see here is kind of spare and extra because you never want to get there and not have something that you might need or might think that you need or don’t need,” Ries said.
Plus it all has to fit in the team’s semi trailer … and they get creative too.
Ries helps load the trailer (Spectrum News 1/Katie Kapusta)
“We’ll hang all of the coaches’ clothing so it stays,” Ries said. “We get it dry-cleaned so we want it to stay wrinkle-free!”
While it takes days to pack and load up everything, Ries says it’s worth it knowing they’re prepared.
“I don’t know, half of the truck we take is for the game, which is the uniforms and that kind of stuff,” he said. “The other half is really just in case.”
