Randy Peterson
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May 11, 2025
Imagine this:
The college football program you oversee plays Game No. 1 of the season in Dublin, Ireland. The opponent isn’t just any ol’ opponent, either. The opponent is a conference opponent in a game that provides an early glimpse of just where some of the Big 12 power resides.
And you’re in charge of making sure everything runs as smoothly as a 2018 win at Oklahoma.
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Matt Campbell’s got it easy, this Farmageddon experience on Aug. 23 in Dublin, Ireland. All he’s in charge of, is the on-field part of this season-opening experience against Kansas State.
In the big scheme of things, that’s nothing (or at least it’s fairly routine), compared to the folks in charge of all things behind the Cyclones football scene.
The equipment staff. The training and nutrition staffs. The team’s managers. Customs agents preparing to process an entire football organization. Cargo plane (for equipment), its loaders and unloaders.
For them, there’s nothing routine.
And you think you’ve got a packing predicament, if you’re one of at least 10,000 Iowa State fans expected to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
This game is a coming together of everyone that even minimally touches a football program that’s coming off a record 11-win season – all under the direction of someone most fans don’t even know exists.
Campbell’s longtime right-hand man, the program’s assistant director of football, the chief of staff, an assistant athletics director, and the fall-guy if something off-the-field goes sideways during the four days the football team will be in Ireland. . . .
All rolled into one program super star named Greg Brabenec, who simply goes by the name “Skip.”
He’s planned for bowl games from Florida to Arizona, and regular-season games between Utah and West Virginia. He’s scouted out hotels where teams stay during road games. He’s taste-tested hotel food the team will eat. He’s a transportation expert (minus the highway construction delay a while back in Waco).
He’s seen it all during his time with Campbell – and in a few months, he’ll add this to his resume:
Overseeing Iowa State football’s first international road trip.
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For gosh sakes, don’t forget the Ranch dressing. The Irish like Ketchup and Sweet Baby Rays (that’s barbecue sauce), but Ranch dressing? It’ll be stashed away in one of the crates.
**
Skip recently returned from Ireland, where he toured the locker rooms, the team hotel, restaurants where players will eat, the airport customs process, and the route team busses will take from the hotel to the stadium.
He’s as meticulous as quarterback Rocco Becht. Almost everything goes through him. (That’s everything except deciding if the quarterback should be under center, or 5 yards behind the center, on short-yardage situations.)
“The people running game are like the greatest humans I’ve ever worked with,” said Brabenec. “They want this to be a great experience – and it will be.”
Skip knows what will be inside each of the crates of equipment, and when they will be flown from the United States to Dublin.
He’ll know what time they’re expected to arrive. He knows, too, that the chartered plane carrying the team and others included in the official travel party will leave Des Moines International Airport on the Wednesday evening before the Saturday game.
He knows the practice schedules. He knows that if the team returns at 10 a.m., Dublin time Sunday, that it’ll be back around noon (Central time.) He knows that if the game starts at 5 p.m., Dublin time, it’ll be 11 a.m., back home (just saying.)
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Brabenec has all the passports. Each player will carry onto the plane their helmet and shoulder pads that were used during practice in Ames – after the cargo crates had already loaded up and transported.
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As of this writing, Campbell wasn’t the only person wondering just how many players can legally make up a college football roster. Brabenec needed to know, too.
“We’re taking everyone, walk-ons included,” Skip told me. “It’s like a bowl game – that just happens to be in another country.”
Except this time, he didn’t know whether to pack for 105 players or 120 players. Campbell will take every player that the NCAA ends up allowing for 2025 rosters.
After all, it’s an historic road trip. It’s not every day you can say you attended the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
**
“We’ll take protein and energy bars,” Brabenec said. “They don’t have Gatorade there; Gatorade will send a pallet of the Gatorade that we’ll need.”
**
As for the Ranch dressing . . .
I guarantee you, whether it be the equipment staff, the nutritionist (probably), the training staff, or even skip – someone will remember the Ranch.
“Everyone thinks I have a hard job for this,” Skip said. “The entire staff has its work cut out for them.”
(Award-winning columnist Randy Peterson can be, and has been, reached at randypete4846@gmail.com or at any Okoboji-area beverage/food establishment between the hours of open and close.)