The travel plan for Kansas football

The Los Angeles Rams got it wrong, the San Francisco 49ers got it right and the Kansas Jayhawks are aiming for somewhere right in between the two.

Overseas travel has been a hot topic in the football world early in the season, in large part because of the Rams-49ers season opener in Australia, where San Francisco spent a full week before playing and the Rams flew in the day before the game.

The 49ers drubbed the Rams in the game, winning 27-7, and looked decidedly sharper and fresher in the process.

So, this week, when the 1-1 Jayhawks travel to London to take on Arizona State (1-1) in the Big 12 opener for both teams, at least some of the talk has been on the teams’ travel plans.

ASU made the trip to London on Saturday, leaving after their road loss at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.

KU left Tuesday afternoon and, because of the time change, will land sometime Wednesday morning in London, giving Lance Leipold’s team three full days and more than half of a fourth before kickoff.

The Sun Devils will get a couple more days in London to shake off the travel and get acclimated to the climate, the environment and their new surroundings. But KU has been studying this thing for a while to decipher the best ways for the Jayhawks to handle it, as well.

To that end, KU’s staff created an app for the players that helps remind and educate them on all of the things they should be doing before, during and after the trip. From everything to basic body movements and the mental side of things to when to sleep and more.

“We’ve had discussions with people who study this international travel, whether it be one way or the other, and all those different things,” Leipold said Monday. “We’ve kind of got guidelines of when to sleep when we get there, staying up and doing those things because it can mess with your body clock. We talked to multiple people; some say go really early (in the week). Our opponent went really early. Some say go really late, and it’s kind of a mixed bag of really of the results and where it’s at.

Beyond that, the KU players and coaches both said they felt good about the schedule for this week in large part because they did their two heaviest days of prep on Sunday and Monday.

“The way we do our days, our hardest day is today (Monday),” KU safety Corey Gordon said. “So, being able to get the hardest day out the way first and then going to London and being able to tighten up some things, watch the film, get everything right, we can still make it a normal game week.”

Added center Kasen Carpenter: “They’ve done a great job prepping us, talking to us early on about how this is gonna look. We’re getting our big work done here, a lot of our physical work done here, which is great. I love that. And once we get over there, it’s going to continue to be a lot of mental things, walk-throughs, installs, we’re going to continue working on that. But, for the most part, it’s just an away game.”

Technically, it’s a home game, but the Jayhawks had seven on the schedule this season and the fact that they’re in the middle of construction made this as good a year as any to give up one of their home dates for an overseas opportunity.

The extra day of prep for the Jayhawks, which came because of KU’s Friday game last week, also added a little breathing room to the trip, something that ASU coach Kenny Dillingham noted as a bit of an advantage for KU in this case.

“You don't expect the scheduling to be different when you schedule a game like this, but at the end of the day it is what it is,” Dillingham said from London on Tuesday, according to multiple reports. “There are no excuses, you either get it done or you don't get it done.”

He even went as far as to call the schedule alignment aspect of it “kind of an unwritten rule” and something that’s “just kind of understood.”

Both coaches understand that this is a cool experience for their players and a chance to gain a little additional exposure for their program. So, there does seem to be genuine appreciation and excitement for the opportunity.

But no matter which side you’re talking about, Leipold summed it up best when talking about the bottom line of what the trip will mean for these particular teams.

“It’s still going to be a little bit (about) how your team plays,” he said. “But responding and going through it and acclimating are definitely things that we’ve talked about and (we) want to do the same thing coming back.”