Auburn equipment to travel 2,500 miles by trailer for Week 2's game at Cal

Auburn‘s equipment team has had a busy weekend.

After Saturday’s season opening victory at home vs. UMass, the crew were tasked with getting everything cleaned up, packed away and boarded into a semi-truck for an approximate 2,500 mile journey for Week 2’s road game against the California Golden Bears.

Video (via The Auburn Experience) on X, shows the equipment truck leaving campus around 3:21 p.m. ET.

CALI BOUND | The Auburn equipment truck is hitting the road! #WarEagle pic.twitter.com/Mk3j3h9cOG

— E2C Network: The Auburn Experience (@E2C_Network) September 3, 2023

The Auburn equipment team’s social media page has been updated throughout the journey, and provided some context as to where they were as of Monday morning.

“The Truck stopped in Little Rock, AR last night,” they posted. “Our drivers stopped to get a hot shower and some food. They are up at em this morning, with a plan of getting to Albuquerque, NM today.”

They also had to drive through blazing temperatures and wicked winds, and last updated (as of this report) their location on Monday afternoon, saying that they were around 200 miles from Amarillo, Texas at 4:08 p.m. ET as the journey continues on the road to Berkeley, California.

While the trek to Amarillo, Texas is a solid 1,079 miles from Auburn’s campus, the remaining distance — at least from that update — is even longer. They still have 1,362 miles to go once they hit Amarillo which is roughly a 20 hour trip. Even if they decided to drive through the night, which they probably won’t, they wouldn’t arrive in Berkeley until the early afternoon on Tuesday.

As the equipment team looks to make the Tigers feel at home for their arrival at Cal later this week, Hugh Freeze and the Auburn football team are still back at home preparing for their non-conference opponent this week. Freeze isn’t looking forward to the way the long will trip shorten their game prep.

“We’re going to have to go out a day early which I’m not real crazy about, truthfully,” Freeze said on Monday. “We didn’t know when the game time would be when we had to schedule all the planes and hotels and now that it’s a night game I kind of wish we were not going until Friday because that’s gonna make for a really long Friday and Saturday there.

Kickoff between the Tigers and Golden Bears is set for Saturday, Sept. 9 at 10:30 p.m. ET live on ESPN. Auburn has opened as a 6.5-point betting favorites over Cal on the road, according to Vegas Insider.