Iowa State and Kansas State play their season opener in Dublin, Ireland.
Iowa State has done extensive logistical planning, including a detailed 1,083-line spreadsheet of equipment and supplies.
Pre-trip visits to Ireland allowed staff to scout locations and customize menus for the team’s stay.
Greg ‘Skip’ Brabenec made a list and checked it more than twice, becoming well-acquainted with more than 10,000 pounds of inventory and all 1,083 lines on his spreadsheet.
It’s far from Christmas time, but Iowa State football’s 2025 season opener against rival Kansas State in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland, is a gift for Cyclones and Wildcats fans. The unique opportunity marks the first time that Iowa State is playing a football game outside of the United States and is the first Big 12 Conference contest to be conducted internationally. Also, with both teams ranked in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll poll, the matchup will be the first Week 0 game to feature two ranked teams since 2002.
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With the added excitement comes added logistical hurdles and challenges for the schools as they prepare to play on the Emerald Isle.
Between securing passports for players, creating a list of items and equipment to pack for their trip across the pond, Brabenec — Iowa State football’s chief of staff — has been overseeing the school’s behind-the-scenes preparation since January.
‘Normally, no matter where we travel — whether it’s Utah, Florida, Arizona — our stuff’s going by truck,’ Brabenec said. ‘We got a big trucking company here in Iowa that are huge Cyclone boosters, donors and all that, and we’re contracted through them. We got our own football trailer and they’ll just kind of haul it wherever, so this is the first time since I’ve been at Iowa State that we’ve had to actually fly our equipment somewhere.’
Brabenec worked closely with equipment, technical, medical and nutrition support staff members to build the spreadsheet of inventory of what to pack.
For stateside road games, the Cyclones have their organized process and routine for preparation. Since they ship their equipment by truck and trailer, they can just load it up to whatever necessary capacity it can hold.
This week, with customs and air transportation involved, there’s a greater sense of detail involved and meticulous care needed.
‘It’s all detailed out to the number of pieces, monetary value of each piece, country of origin, where these things are from, dimensions of it, weight and where it’s going — whether it’s going to the hotel or the stadium,’ Brabenec said, referring to the spreadsheet and carnet that is required for shipping equipment and goods. ‘It’s pretty detailed as best as we can.’
The 1,083-line spreadsheet accounts for everything including practice and game-day equipment, ball driers, different outfit combinations for Iowa State coach Matt Campbell, medical supplies, Band-Aids, headsets, the exact serial numbers for the iPads they’re bringing, Frank’s Red Hot Sauce and Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce.
Each trunk or bin containing items and equipment is thoroughly broken down by its contents and weight.
Each line of the document likely mirrors the sets of eyes and number of times it was reviewed by Brabenec or another support staff member to ensure Iowa State has everything it needs for this unprecedented trip.
The inventory list was finalized in the weeks leading into the Ireland trip. An aircraft carrying all of the Cyclones’ equipment left from Chicago to Dublin a week before the team would arrive there for game week.
‘The main thing is when you pack, our goal was to pack as if we won’t be able to buy it,’ said Marshall senior associate athletics director Mike Valentine, who previously oversaw Northwestern’s equipment room preparation process when the Wildcats played in Ireland against Nebraska in 2022. ‘There were some things we had to go out and adjust on. Power, electricity and power strips, and the converters, that was the big one. We brought a whole bunch and we ended up having to buy some because they would just get fried and you could smell it.’
There are no Wal-Marts or Targets in Ireland. Superstores aren’t as common in Dublin as they are in Des Moines.
‘For a bowl game, (equipment) is on a truck, so we just kind of throw everything on the truck and go,’ Brabenec said. ‘If we miss something, we can probably just go to the sporting store and get it before a game or something like that. With this, we really can’t go to the sporting store and go buy football cleats or something like that, so we definitely made sure that we pack everything and extras of certain things.’
As for passports, Iowa State made sure to get a jump on the process as early as possible. For the Cyclones, that meant waiting until after the December transfer-portal window closed. Although there was another transfer window during spring football, that winter window helped narrow down which players would likely remain on the roster for the 2025 season.
For many of the Cyclones, this is their first international trip. Brabenec said approximately 40 players on Iowa State’s 120-man roster already possessed a passport.
‘We worked with them to make sure they can start getting their passport, whether it was in Utah or here in Iowa, just making sure they knew what they could do and how to get that,’ Brabenec said. ‘If they weren’t able to do it on their own, we just made sure they brought their stuff with them when they got here. And to be honest, it was a fairly easy process.’
In addition to the stateside preparation that the Cyclones have done, they also took a few trips to Ireland to scout out the land.
Brabenec and the nutrition staff toured the team hotel earlier this year and sampled food to customize the menu for their time in Ireland.
‘Last summer, I got a chance to at least go over there and see the space for two or three days, personally,’ Campbell said. ‘Kind of go on the same three-day trip that our players are about to go on, so it gave me a great lay of the land. My whole mission is, how do we try to keep everything as normal as we possibly can?’
Aug. 23 will be anything but normal, but the Cyclones are hopeful that their preparations and research will have them ready for a smooth trip to Ireland and back.
‘A lot of effort has gone into it, and I really appreciate what they’ve done to kind of give us a platform to get over there and try to get into normalcy as fast as we possibly can,’ Campbell said.
Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register.