HONOLULU — What is the Hawaiian word for “dumpster fire”?
The extent of the damage, if any, won’t be known until early Sunday morning in Fargo, but North Dakota State’s visit to the islands did not go off on a good note.
This could turn out to be nothing more than part of a good story about a football victory on NDSU’s first trip to play Hawaii in the Mountain West Conference.
Then again, this could prove to be a losing factor for the favored Bison in a critically important matchup.
NDSU’s arrival on Oahu was delayed by approximately 13 hours on Thursday, with the Bison not arriving until around 5 a.m. Friday. The problem was the plane the team had chartered for a direct flight via Eastern Airlines from Hector International Airport to Honolulu. Apparently there were mechanical problems and NDSU had to wait for another plane to arrive from another location to pick them up for the 8 1/2 hour flight.
Eastern Airlines, once a national powerhouse, long ago adopted a charter and cargo-only business model. Only by charter, you say? You guys had a job.
Instead of arriving Thursday afternoon to begin acclimating to Hawaii time and preparing for Saturday’s 10 p.m. Central time kickoff against the Rainbow Warriors, NDSU didn’t arrive until the wee hours.
A nightmare in paradise.
If you’re wondering why this is such a big deal, it’s both a matter of practicality and a matter of mentality.
College football teams have a strict routine, especially when traveling on the road. Things are planned down to the minute with departure, arrival, meals, hydration, stretching, workouts, visits, practices.
Coaches are obsessed with schedules and routines. Like, obsessive. Any disruption in routine is seen as a crater on the road to victory as big as Diamond Head near Waikiki.
Bisons head coach Tim Polasek, already quite injured, was probably fit to be tied since the delay stretched over half a day. I can’t imagine the tension there.
This is the practical side of things. NDSU started planning this trip to Hawaii about nine months ago. The level of detail was insane, far beyond scheduled training on a high school field and a detour to visit Pearl Harbor. All this is now out of the question. Every bit of it.
The mentality part is simply human nature, and it is related to the physical aspect.
NDSU and all Division I college football teams typically arrive a day before its games. If the game is Saturday, they arrive Friday and resume their routine with meetings and perhaps a light practice or tour before getting a good night’s sleep and playing Saturday.
The reason the Bison planned to arrive here Thursday afternoon was to allow the players to acclimate to the four-hour time change, get their legs under them and practice Friday more thoroughly than they normally would. You just have to put your feet on the ground, soak up the island’s ambiance and get slightly used to their body believing it’s 10 p.m. when the island clocks say it’s 6 p.m.
The question will be whether the angst and lamenting will have any effect on the Bison in their game against Hawaii.
In talking with head coach Timmy Chang and a few players earlier this week, it seemed like the Rainbow Warriors saw this as a particularly important matchup, an opportunity to take down the newcomer who has a championship pedigree and is attracting a lot of media attention in the Bison’s first year in the Mountain West. They will be ready.
As of this writing, the Bison are only 6.5-point favorites. This could be reduced when news of the travel snafu reaches punters and bookmakers.
In the world of football, it’s essentially a wasted day in an already tight preparation window.
It will come down to whether NDSU’s players and coaches — primarily the players — are resilient enough to overcome the complicated situation and find a way to block and tackle better than Hawaii.
The Rainbow Warriors are 3-6 after winning two straight games and in the midst of a disappointing season, so the Bison are the better team. The strangeness of the trip, Hawaii’s chaotic passing offense and NDSU’s offensive struggles were already going to make this game difficult for the Bison. This just adds to it.
Can the Bison shake off the bumpy road trip and pull out a win, keeping them in the hunt for a possible berth in the conference championship game?
There’s a chance that all the minute-by-minute planning and coaching obsession gets overcooked and the better team wins because it’s the better team.
But while Hawaii is a paradise for most visitors, especially first-time visitors, it could be a nightmare for bison.
Mike McFeely is a columnist for the Fargo-Moorhead Forum. He began working for The Forum in the 1980s while studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has worked at the Forum full-time since 1990, minus a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk show.
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