It's not too early to start thinking about bowl season

It’s only August, but Kent State is already thinking about bowl season.

The Flashes and every other team in the Mid-American Conference and C-USA have to plan ahead because of the possibility of winning a bid to make a Christmas Eve trip to play in the Bahamas Bowl in Nassau.

Travel to the Bahamas requires a valid passport. For Kent State, that means every player on the roster, every coach and every member of the team’s support staff needs to have passport. 

Just getting passports for over 100 student athletes is a logistical challenge. Fortunately, the Flashes learned a little bit about dealing with that problem from 2007-10 during the MAC’s affiliation with the International Bowl in Toronto.

I talked with Casey Wolf, Kent State’s director of football operations during that time and the current athletic director for Amherst High School, about how big a job it was to get passports for the Flashes entire roster. 

In 2007, Wolf and his staff set up times during the summer to meet with groups of between 10 and 30 football players at CVS to have their passport photos taken. Then he waited for each player or parent to send in original birth certificates and all other forms. Representatives of the City of Kent helped out by coming to Dix Stadium to complete the application process. 

“It took the whole summer,” Wolf said.

It is a little easier this year, again thanks to the City of Kent. Representatives will be coming back to Dix Stadium to help as each student athlete fills out the applications. Every player is responsible for bringing his or her original birth certificate, a drivers licenses copy, a Kent State ID, an expired passport if they have one, and a social security card. Players will also be responsible for having their own 2x2 passport photo taken.

The City of Kent will then take all of the completed applications. 

As long as the MAC continues its affiliation with the Bahamas Bowl, every new football player coming into the program will have to go through the same process during future camps. 

Who pays for the new passports? The players’ passports The NCAA through its Student Assistance Fund. But that means the passports are held by the university. If a player needs a passport for a family vacation, they can be signed out.

Fortunately, I already have my passport, and I’m hoping to be able to use it in December for a trip to the Bahamas. I’ll be just as happy going to Mobile, Boca Raton, Montgomery or Boise, though. I just want to see the Flashes play in another bowl game.

The trip to Mobile for the GoDaddy.com Bowl two years ago was fantastic. The city rolled out the red carpet. And while Boise may not sound as sexy as some of the other homes of bowl games, I’ve heard nothing but great things about the way the city treats its guests for the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Playing in the first Camellia Bowl or Boca Raton Bowl would probably be a whole lot of fun, too.

If the Flashes are bowl eligible come November, would you make the trip? Where would you like to go? And do you have your passport ready if it’s the Bahamas?