Putting on one football game isn’t as easy as placing the football on the tee, blowing a whistle and letting two teams have at it.
Finding spots in crowded schedules, agreeing to financial terms and getting the teams to the game are only a few of the puzzle pieces that must be put into place.
Now, imagine trying to put on two games … at a neutral site … in just three days.
That’s what Gary Stokan and his organization face in hosting two Chick-fil-A Kickoff games at the Georgia Dome.
“It’s a challenge to put on any game,” he said. “But to put on two in that time constraint. …”
Thursday’s opener features Boise State, favored to win the Mountain West Conference, against No. 18 Ole Miss, a dark horse to win the SEC West. The finale Saturday is No. 2 Alabama, a perennial national title contender, against rebuilding West Virginia.
There will be less than 36 hours from the late finish of Thursday’s game until the Tide and Mountaineers take the field around lunchtime Saturday for their walk-throughs and warmups.
The Dome will undergo several cosmetic changes in between: First, it must be cleaned of the trash left behind by thousands of fans. Second, Boise State and Ole Miss team signs will have to be removed and replaced by new ones for Alabama and West Virginia. Painted end zones will have to be scrubbed clean and re-painted with the new school names.
Two different sets of officials must be helped, as well as two different sets of TV crews and radio crews as part of a total of more than 400 media members accredited to cover at least one of the two games.
Off the field is a madness that must be synchronized to take care of 33 sponsors, 300 volunteers, 125,000 ticket-holders and 212,500 square feet of activities to monitor in a nearby fan zone.
Those are just a few of the stakeholders.
And just because the city and site are the same doesn’t add any efficiencies that will reduce the rate of the work. In fact, Stokan said it takes more than twice the personnel to put on both games because of the compressed time schedule.
“It’s a lot of coordination,” Stokan said.
There isn’t yet another doubleheader of Kickoff games scheduled. This week’s will be the second in three years. Stokan they will host two in one week only when it makes financial sense for everyone involved.
“We would like to look at it maybe in the new stadium (in 2017) with something unique,” he said.
The Boise State-Ole Miss matchup is an example of the difficulty in scheduling only one game. The teams were supposed to meet in 2011 in Oxford, Miss. But the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game wanted the Broncos, the then-darlings of college football, to play Georgia in Atlanta.
So negotiations began.
Boise State agreed to come in a 2-for-1 deal. BYU agreed to replace Boise State as the Rebels’ season-opening opponent in 2011. Ole Miss agreed to that deal if they could also come play in Atlanta.
Stokan didn’t know at the time that he was only delaying the matchup between the Rebels and Broncos.
“That’s primarily why we have two games this year,” Stokan said.
