A common practice in Division I football is to have players and coaches stay in a hotel the night before a home football game. The Mid-American Conference is no different. Each school in the MAC division assures that the football team gets a good night’s sleep, time with coaches and team bonding free from distractions at a hotel.
At the University, the football team is the only sport that stays the night at a hotel the night before a home game. This is true for every other school in the MAC aside from the Miami RedHawks, which allows its other sports teams the same privileges.
Executive director for the American Football Coaches Association, Todd Berry, says the reasoning behind putting football players in a hotel the night before a game has to do with the popularity of the sport over others and the campus atmosphere that can come the night before a home game.
“Every college campus is different, but usually the night before a home football game, campuses get more rambunctious,” Berry said. “Coaches may decide to have their players in a hotel to eliminate the risk of their players getting into trouble.”
Berry said when he coached at Army, he had his players in a hotel the night before because there were room inspections at 2 a.m. which affected the players’ rest. At the University, there is concern about the players not getting rest by staying in their dorms.
“Dorm life can be exhausting,” Jason Knavel, assistant athletics director for athletic communications said. “It can get loud, there’s always something going on. One of the reasons for getting away is to have a controlled environment where they (the players) can work and study as a team.”
The team stays at the Hilton Garden Inn in Perrysburg, where they get a special rate through athletic department partnerships. They don’t stay in Bowling Green because according to Knavel, there are limited hotels with the accommodations necessary to house a team with over 100 players, have rooms for them to meet in and can cater food.
Players enjoy their hotel stays. “I like staying in a hotel the night before because I get to sleep in a bigger bed that’s more comfortable. We go to the movies every time we’re away, and it is pretty fun. We get food, everything,” defensive end Antonyo Sotolongo said.
Knavel declined to schedule interviews with athletes from other sports teams at the University to ask them about their thoughts on the football team being the only sport to get the opportunity to stay in a hotel the night before home games.
Neither Sotolongo nor James Morgan, quarterback for the football team had an opinion on the fairness between accommodations for sports teams.
“I can’t really speak on it. I only know what us as football players have been doing, and it’s beneficial for us,” Morgan said.
Sotolongo isn’t sure why other teams on campus are not afforded the same accommodations.
“Everyone else has their own way of doing things. Our way is to stay in a hotel. Hockey or soccer may have a sleepover at their house,” he said.
Staying in a hotel may be the most beneficial for the football team to get together and relax the night before a game, but the benefits don’t show in the team’s record. Currently, the football team only has two wins on the season.
Some teams who don’t get these accommodations have a better record on the season, like volleyball, which earned a MAC co-championship for the regular season for the first time since 1992, and men’s cross country, which finished third overall in the MAC Conference Championship, their best finish since 1995.
“Our budget is 12th out of 12 in the MAC. We don’t spend money around here. We don’t have money to waste. If we’re going to spend money on something, it’s used to further core values of the University, which is to have athletic programs that provide school spirit and expand the brand of the University. If there was no value to it, we wouldn’t spend money on it,” Knavel said.
