Cal, Stanford prepare for first of many ACC cross-country trips

STANFORD, Calif. — Cross-country travel is nothing new for California coach Justin Wilcox, who has taken the Golden Bears to places like Auburn, Mississippi and North Carolina and come away with victories in recent years.

Travel will become much more common for Cal and Bay Area rival Stanford now that both schools are in their first seasons in the ACC, where the rest of the schools are halfway across the country.

The Cardinals will play their first ACC game Friday night at Syracuse, while the Bears will play the following day at Florida State.

Wilcox said his team has settled into a routine after winning at Auburn in a nonconference game two weeks ago. The Bears will practice at their regular time Thursday and then immediately prepare for the trip, leaving a day earlier than they would for Pac-12 road games.

“We make this a race to see how fast we can get off the ground,” Wilcox said. “So, locker room, buses go as fast as they can, get out of there. Our team really enjoys it. We spend a lot of time together. … We spend all Friday together. We have rest periods, meetings, classes. Obviously, we do our walkthrough. You get your body clock set. Our whole group seems to really enjoy it. We have a lot of good times together.”

Wilcox said sometimes players will have to take a quiz or proctored exam on Friday, but otherwise it’s not much different than any other road trip aside from the longer flight.

The Cardinals will also leave a day earlier than usual, heading to Syracuse on Wednesday for the Friday night game. Stanford won’t have to wait long for its second cross-country trip with a game at Clemson next week. But with this week’s game on a Friday, coach Troy Taylor opted not to stay in the East between games to cut down on travel.

Stanford’s nutrition team has already talked with the players about how to approach the long trip, which isn’t much different from previous road games in Hawaii or Notre Dame.

“Our nutrition team really emphasizes hydration, especially on these long flights,” said safety officer Mitch Leigber. “Just try not to get dehydrated. So, stay hydrated throughout the flight. For me, the biggest thing is trying not to sleep on the plane, especially with the time difference. I try not to disrupt my sleep pattern. Those are a couple of things I do to try to stay focused throughout these long flights and not disrupt my routine too much.”

Cal and Stanford aren’t the only two former Pac-12 teams that will travel for the first time this week to play in their new conference. No. 11 Southern California will make its Big Ten debut Saturday when the Trojans travel to No. 18 Michigan.

UCLA, Oregon and Washington will soon have the opportunity to participate in extended conference travel. In total, the six Pacific Time Zone schools that left the Pac-12 for the Big Ten or ACC will play 20 conference games away in the Eastern or Central time zones, plus three more non-conference games.

Matches in new locations are welcomed by many players, who are excited at the prospect of being able to play against new teams that they may have long-standing ties to in the past.

Stanford backup quarterback Justin Lamson spent two seasons at Syracuse and is relishing the opportunity to play in the Carrier Dome as a visitor after transferring schools before the Cardinal joined the ACC.

“It’s an electric atmosphere, so I can’t wait to get back out there,” he said. “Obviously, when I signed with Stanford, I never thought we’d be playing Syracuse in Week 3 of my sophomore year here. I can’t wait to get out there and play them.”

Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza grew up in Miami watching the Hurricanes play the Seminoles every year and will now play both schools in his next two games with Miami set to come to Berkeley in two weeks.

“Being from Miami, going to a lot of the Miami-FSU rivalry games was the highlight of my year growing up,” Mendoza said. “So that’s a big deal.”

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